IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY, AMARILLO TAUGHT THE BAND TO PLAY...

The 2001 World Series of Poker is history now. Written in the record books as the largest WSOP ever. This year saw a record 612 (over 100 more then last year) in the finals of 25 contests, with over $18 million dollars at stake.

The winner-take-all big No Limit Texas Hold 'Em contest, the daddy of them all, saw Carlos Mortensen , born in Madrid, Spain take home the $1.5 million dollar first place prize along with the coveted gold bracelet.

In the final hand the last two left standing were Dewey Tomko with just over $2 million, and Carlos Mortensen with $4.1 million bucks. Some how Dewey was dealt a pair of wired Aces, usually a deadly hand, except in Texas Hold 'Em where someone holding a 6-7 suited will inevitably pull the straight against your lousy pair of aces. Mortensen was dealt the King-Queen of clubs. Now when someone raises you $100,000 the only polite thing to do is see him and piss your pants. The flop came Jack/diamonds -10/clubs - 3/clubs, this put Mortensen on a four-card straight, and a four-card flush draw. Tomko had the wired Aces and had the best hand going in...or so he thought.

He must have seen the possible hands, (in Hold 'Em when a 9-10, 10-J, J-Q come up on the flop you can bet someone is holding successive face cards to fill in the straights) and so the King-Queen of clubs would have been the most likely of bad breaks for Tomko. When he saw the J-10 of clubs, Mortensen, a 29-year-old professional poker player, knew if he were going to take the shot, this would be the time. And Tomko said the same thing to himself, if another Ace comes up on board, should Mortensen be holding any King-Queen, Tomko would be holding three Aces against a sure made straight. (10-J-K-Q-A) and the only way Tomko could win is if the last card made him a full house.

If another club comes up Mortensen has a made flush. So Mortensen takes the shot and raises $100,000 and Tomko takes the plunge and calls the $100,000 and raises $400,000 for a total of $500,000. Mortensen never hesitated when he asks Tomko how much he's got left. "About a million and a half." Replies Tomko.

Mortensen calls the table and Tomko says "All In" and all that meant was winner takes all. The million and a half dollar first place prize was sitting on the table next to the players along with the gold bracelet that simply says WSOP. The next two cards would write history, and there would be no action on them either.

Both players committed to watching them fall without so much as a chance to just say, CHECK. The 3/diamonds put Tomko on the better of two pair, Aces and Threes. The three of diamonds was no help at all to Mortensen and although he only needed another club, or only a nine would help, if the ace should fall now, the straight would do him no good against Tomko's full house, unless of course it was the Ace of clubs which was still out there that would give Mortensen a Royal Flush.

This would be the next to greatest ending in the history of Texas Hold 'Em only to the history written in 1981 when the similar hand came down between Amarillo Slim and Dusty Waller in a private game that started early on a Saturday morning and ended some time Sunday. But back to the 2001 WSOP finish, as the last card dropped was the 9/diamonds which gave Mortensen the straight and Tomko the ticket to ride.

Both hands were already exposed on the table and the 600 spectators applauded as Mortensen's wife managed to give him a little kiss as she grabbed at the cash and gold bracelet as though she just won the tournament. Tomko said "I played it as good as I could have, only fate stood on that last card, it could have been a four of spades or a six of hearts, but only the nine of diamonds was only one of many that could have made his hand.

What would you have done with a pair of wired aces in the biggest game of your life? And I just thought "hmm, the biggest game of my life was that $100 raise I got once where I couldn't keep my hands from shaking when I said 'kill, uh, I mean call' and spilled my seven-up in the process at which time all the other guy could say was 'shit, what, you got a goddamn Royal Flush?' You're shaking like a dog shittin' peach pits".

But back to the Amarillo Slim story...

It was a table of eight on that late Friday night/Saturday morning around 3am when the game finally started to wind down. Only Slim and three others remained as Slim sent one of the brush men for a sandwich and coffee. At the table sat Dusty Waller, an old player from back east that was raised in the back rooms of Kansas City and later in towns like Chicago and St. Louis which back in the 60's were the hub of classic poker rooms, smoky, with 50watt bulbs hanging in swinging lights over the tables along with a couple pool tables and a bar.

By the time the sun rose that morning the most of the $50,000 was split between Slim and Waller and as the third player finally went all in with a pair of 10's lost to three sixes held by Waller to fill his racks for the ammunition to take a shot at Amarillo.

The word got around the room (this was at the old Mint, next door to the Horseshoe, before the Horseshoe had regular poker tables.) that Slim was calling his moneyman to get a shot at Waller's bankroll. It was a just-in-case call, but a prophetic one that gamblers often make to be sure when the time comes to make that one raise or call that big raise, they don't have to wonder where they're going to get the money to see the hand out.

Hand led to hand and hour led to hour as the money see-sawed back and forth until Saturday afternoon when Waller took the remainder of the $12,000 Slim had left in front of him with a lousy pair of Jacks to Slims possible straight/flush/straight flush draw.

Slim turned to his moneyman who firmly shook his head NO and Slim just went all in on the flop and never made the hand. It was time for him to pack it up and head back to Texas, or was it? Slim turned to Waller and said "you're good, you're real good, but give me another $10,000 and I'll have you standing in line at the local mission downtown for a sandwich and coffee." With those words Slim turned to his moneyman and said "And you're fucking worthless."

By this time there were probably thirty of us watching the outcome of the last hand and two of the guys in the crowd who looked like they might have been Greek or Armenian or something, were talking in one of those languages that sounds more like they're constantly trying to clear a hairball from their kidney.

"Hey Slim, I got $10,000 that says you can take this guy." His friend pulls out a wad that could plug Hoover Dam. He peeled off $10,000 like he was super-sizing a Big Mac, and Slim said in earnest "Look pal, that's nice and all, but if I lost it I don't have the money here to pay ya back." "I didn't ask to get paid back, I just want to watch you play, if you win I just want the money back, you can keep the rest, if you loose, I can say I backed Amarillo Slim for $10,000 once in my life, like buying a pair of boxing gloves to watch Ali fight Frazier, don't matter who wins, I just wanna see a fight."

And with that Slim turned to Waller and said " I'm going for a sandwich and coffee, I'll meet ya back here in an hour, and lock up that money of yours in the cage, I don't want you loosing it to anyone else while I'm eating." The brush man picked up the racks of chips and walked them to the cage as Slim and the two strangers went to lunch. An hour later there must have been 50 or more people to watch the match and when Slim came back it reminded me of Jackie Gleason in The Hustler, when he's clearly beaten by a drunk Paul Newman, he walks into the bathroom, removes his jacket and washes his hands and face, splashes some cologne on and has his man put his coat back on, he buttons the jacket and straightens his tie, puts a new carnation in his lapel, and has his man dust his hands with baby powder, walks out of the bathroom looking like a new person as Newman sits slumped in his chair with his whisky in hand. "Let's play some pool Fast Eddie." " Look at him" says Newman "Looks like a new born baby being powdered like that." and with that, Gleason (Minnesota Fats) proceeds to hand Newman his lunch.

Slim walks into the poker room with a newly pressed shirt, a nice western style sports coat and new Stetson, a fresh shine on his cowboy boots like someone just greased them up, and his hands all pink and clean like he was ready to play some pool. Waller on the other hand spent the hour watching the pony races at the Horseshoe and chugging the best Scotch the Horseshoe kept in stock. He came back to the table looking like a guy who's spent the last week picking up aluminum cans behind the Union Plaza.

"You ready to play some poker?" "Suuure, lez play sum." and with that he plopped down on the chair and ordered a large coffee from the cocktail waitress, which in Horseshoe terms means fill the glass nearer to the top of the same glass as the small coffee. He was hoping to wake up a little realizing that Amarillo just spent the last hour like a boxer warming up for a fight, he was rested and looking to get even for the licking he took earlier in the day.

The two foreigners sat at the table with him like a rub down man and the cut-guy at the fight, in the other corner sat Waller's money man who more resembled the guy you turn the aluminum cans into for the $1.75 needed for the Colt 45 Super Size quarts.

In that hour I had sat in on the $4 - $8 Hold 'Em game a couple tables over so when they were ready to play I'd get a good seat. I was a beginner poker player and this was a match I couldn't miss. When the game started, the $4 - $8 game folded like a cheap carnival sideshow. The other games shut down as the players turned their chairs to watch the action on the one middle table. I'd swear the lights were turned down and the noise in the casino faded as players from the machines and the black jack tables emptied out to watch the action that unfolded. I didn't see the motion picture cameras but I'd swear it was a scene from a Hollywood movie.

The first couple hours went by with just a few bucks changing hands and it seemed like none of them would catch a hand, but sometime that evening the two cards were dealt out and Slim stood up and pushed his stacks in, threw over his A-K of diamonds and said "all in for now." Waller flipped over his two 10's and said "timing is everything Slim, how much you got there?"

"Around $22,000, don't worry, you got it there."

"Yah, and I'll call that, I got ya beat right now."

The dealer burns the top card and flops Jack/diamonds, Jack/clubs, Ten/diamonds, Waller is sitting on an instant full house, he slams his fists on the table so hard a couple stacks of chips fall like dominoes, "YES, FULL BOAT."

He turns to Slim and says "I'll let ya take a thousand out if you need some traveling money Slim."

"You wanna give me a thousand bucks when I got you beat? What you been smoking there pal? There's still the Queen of diamonds in that deck."

"Yah, and if you wanna raise the bet I'll wait." said Waller. The room was shook at that, and even more shook when Slim stood up and said "I can raise another $25,000 if you give me an hour."

Waller laughed out loud, something you don't do to Amarillo Slim. One card in the deck, there were 12 cards already dealt, the burn cards weren't seen so only nine cards were seen out of 52, giving Slim one chance in 43 to catch a Queen of diamonds for a Royal Flush, the only hand that could beat Waller's 10's over Jacks full-house.

Slim and the two moneymen disappeared into the Horseshoe. The rest of us were left to wonder just what would happen as clear plastic boxes were placed over the two stacks of chips, another plastic box was placed over the four face-up cards and burn cards as well as the remaining deck. The dealer placed the deck face down and the dealer just sat with two armed security guards who stood sentry on the table.

By 9:30 the table was still empty as I sat in the sports book just figuring Slim would never raise that kind of money facing those odds. I know he wanted to beat Waller but those odds were just impossible to fight. Then the sound in the casino began to rise as people began to move from the doorways and Slim walked back into the casino with another man. Waller who was practically asleep in the race book looking like another typical busted out gambler spending the night sleeping it off at the closed book.

Although he was sitting on over $50,000 of Slim's money already, conceding the full house to Slim's thin hope of the turn of one card, he looked like he couldn't afford a single room at the flop house down the street. They shook him awake and he moved back into the poker room with a packed room full of poker fans waiting the two hours for the final outcome of the hand.

Slim looking wide-awake pulled out his wallet and took a money order for $27,500 and placed it on the table when they were both seated. The brush man took the check that Slim endorsed and walked to the cage, a few minutes later he returned with 27 - $1,000 chips and a pink $500 chip in a clear poker rack, and placed it on the table as the plastic boxes were removed from the chips and finally the cards.

Slim looked at Waller and simply said. "When you walk into the poker room, look for the sucker, if you can't find him in the first 10 minutes, you're the sucker."

Waller looked up at him like a man beaten, I've seen the look before as a pool player myself when the guy you're playing realizes you're hustling him and that's going to be beaten out of his money, and there's nothing he could do about it.

Slim played the hand like a man possessed, like he could see through the next burn card and into the second card and the dealer slaps the burn card from the top and begins to expose the next card, the players standing next to me saw what I saw first, it was definitely paint, and it was definitely red, the card came down on the layout and without seeing the card, we knew instantly it was the Queen of Diamonds by the drain of blood in Waller's face.

I looked down and the dealer was still holding the corner of the Queen, his fingers still shaking. It was for me, the first time I've ever seen a made Royal Flush, Slim leaned into the poker table and helped the dealer push the stacks of black and pink chips into Slims side of the table.

"That's why they call me Slim, even a slim chance is good as gold pal."

And there we were, watching the greatest poker game that I've ever seen, the hundred or so that got to see the outcome will never forget those words of Amarillo Slim "If ya can't spot the sucker, you're it."

-Ken Pearlman