“Scotty Warbucks” Wins
Sunday, August 9, 2009 - Phil Hellmuth
The Hustler Club’s championship event back in 2002 proved to be quite a ride for me, Levi Rothman and Charlie Shoten. With a starting stack of $10,000 and a fantastic structure (the same one as the WSOP had, except the blinds went up on the hour), we had a ton of time to “move” our chips. This structure required a huge amount of skill, and I believe, barring a terrible beat, any great player who was on top of his game would make it to day two in this event.
Before the tournament began, Charlie paid me the following compliment, “Your articles have allowed me to improve my play in No Limit Hold’em (NLH) so much that I recently won a nice NLH tournament.” I’m used to taking a lot of BS from the other players,’ but one look at Charlie told me he was being sincere so I thanked him and the tournament began.
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Charlie Shoten, CLU (AKA Scotty Warbucks)
I didn’t know I could play NLH.
I just completed playing 20 hours of NLH at the Players Champion
$3,000 buy-in Hustler Casino.
I’ve played limit poker in California the past 12 years and never considered NLH, as I knew that one mistake or one bad judgment call would put you out. I am a very aggressive player, and if I make a bunch of misjudgments in limit ring games I can still have a winning session. In fact, brilliant play can make up for a multitude of questionable plays. Every time I entered a small NLH tournament I didn’t know how much to bet, what type of hands to look for, or hardly any of the main ingredients that add up to being a top pro.
I’ve always enjoyed reading Phil Hellmuth’s best Hand of the Week™ articles in Card Player Magazine as many are about NLH. Specifically, his recent article about laying down a royal flush draw on a flop, while being a 54% or so favorite with 2 cards still to flop hit a cord in my brain. Phil explained that he would have to risk all of his chips and even though he was a favorite he chose to wait for a better scenario, as he felt he could win the tournament and was not prepared to risk it all at this stage in the game.
O’K, a light went on. “Protect” your chips and look for the right situations. Risk
an amount that you can afford without risking elimination.
I have always played poker without intellectual thinking…going by gut and inspiration. There are only 52 cards and the combinations and possibilities are deeply known in my being after 60 years of poker starting as a five year old in family games. My analogy of this is blackjack. If we knew 50 years ago what we know now about blackjack we could beat the game all day long. So, going past the basic odds it comes down to picking your spots and protecting your chips; and doing it from your gut. Inspiration, not analysis; I believe that we are all in communication with each other on an energy basis, and, combination of ESP, body language and verbal language. We know exactly where we stand on each hand. That information is only available to us to the extent we can tune in to our intuition and reveal the best choice instantly for every play.
In conclusion I got hit by the deck and probably will never win another NLH tournament again. It’s even more important to be in the real world.
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When we reached the final three players that day, a deal was proposed that was very fair. Charlie and Levi asked me to make a deal, and I agreed under the condition that I get the best of it. They both said, “no problem.” With a deal on the table where I would lock into $72,000, Charlie into $76,000, Levi into $55,000, and $9,000 left over to play for first place, things looked pretty fair. Levi was giving up only a little bit, and was going to be able to lock up second place but he decided at the last minute, and I mean last minute, that we would continue to play on without the deal. This didn’t bother me too much, as I felt that I would be a big favorite when Levi and I tangoed. I didn’t think that Charlie and I would play a big pot for awhile, as we were staying away from each other. But if a big pot were to come up against Charlie, I felt like I would be in great shape.
At this point, I stupidly bluffed off $60,000 into Charlie–who I knew was excellent at reading people—and left myself with $250,000 when the following hand came up. Levi limped in for $8,000 (the blinds were $4,000-$8,000, and the three of us voted out the antes) on the button, and I looked down at my unluckiest hand ever—A-Q. Rather than mess around with a smaller raise, I went ahead and raised it $30,000 more into that little $24,000 pot to send a message that I was strong. Levi didn’t read the message very well, and as he began to study, I started to root for him to move all-in. I had him on A-10 or so, and I put an old acting move on that I save for the biggest moments in poker. I acted weak. I made my aura appear weak–I made myself look terrified of any action at all.
Levi announced, “I’m all-in,” and I said, “I call” as fast as is humanly possible. He then said, “Uh oh” and flipped up Ad-Jd. I thought, “Please let me win this pot.” I hadn’t played any other key pots all day long. This was the one pot that I was the most vulnerable too losing, as it would leave me with only $30,000 in chips. If I won it, I would bust the guy who didn’t make a good deal, as always seems to be the rule in poker tournaments. And, if I won it, I was going to get at least $90,000 in a heads up deal with Charlie. Instead, the cards came up 2d-3d-5c-6d–at which point they announced that I was drawing dead!
Shortly thereafter I walked away with $34,000, instead of the $93,000 I would have received had I won this pot or the $72,000 from a deal. I was shell-shocked!
Levi had been a bit of a wildcard all day long–at one point he took out Tab with 9d-10d. He plays pretty recklessly, but I like his style. He turned down a fair deal, even though he was stone cold broke! Levi has some potential, and he’ll do well if he can ever learn to slow down a bit. It must also be said that Levi seems like a great guy.
Meanwhile, Charlie played excellent poker throughout the final table, and I believe that he’ll be back again soon in NLH, as his “reading powers” are very strong. I just wish he hadn’t starting reading my articles!
I hope that everyone enjoyed this week’s HOW. Good luck playing your hands this week.
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