WPT By The Book - Texas Hold’Em

Written by Raj on February 5th, 2006

The World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Mike Sexton, one of the two regular TV tourney commentators, faced off against 5 other well-known poker players in the WPT By the Book tourney yesterday. The common thread here is that all six players have written poker books, hence the name of the tourney.

I missed most of the tourney, catching only the last 15 minutes. At this point, Doyle Brunson is up against Phil Hellmuth - whose book, Phil Hellmuth’s Texas Hold’eEm, I’m currently reading. Phil has a Ks,Ts against Doyle’s Ad,5d, and a flop of 7h,Kh,3s. Fourth street pops up Ah, followed by a river of 6h.

Next hand: Phil’s open-ended straight draw, QsTc, is up against Doyle’s AhJc (flop of Ks,8c,Js) sees a 7d on 4th Street, followed by a river of 2h, knocking Hellmuth out at third place. The necessary 9-card just didn’t materialize.

This leaves Doyle up against David Sklansky, known as the math wizard, for top place. David - a math professor at Columbia University and a poker theoretician - can, at the drop of a hat, calculate the odds of his pocket cards winning - all in his head. David’s skills stood him in good stead, but Doyle’s really done in by a bunch of bad hands, leaving him in 2nd place.

Overall:
Mike Sexton 6th place
T.J. Cloutier 5th place
Mike Caro 4th place
Phil Hellmuth 3rd place
Doyle Brunson 2nd place
David Sklansky 1st place

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