How To Win a Big Tournament

First, I should probably apologize for the title of this article. Nobody can tell you how to win a tournament, whether the game is poker, blackjack, slots or any other casino game.

The best winners can do is inform you how they won a particular tournament. The rest is up to you. While you can certainly benefit from some of the things they did and techniques they used to overcome the odds and beat the other players, no two tournaments are alike and the circumstances for them may vary greatly from the ones you faced.

I want to thank my regular readers on this website for inspiring me to write this column. After publishing an article recently on this website, half a dozen readers, including Rory, Jade, Alberto, Pinky and Anthony sent me emails urging me to tell the complete story of how I happened to win a major World Poker Open Tournament in Tunica, MS. some years back.

The World Poker Open or WPO as it is referred to in international poker circles is second only to the World Series of Poker in prestige. Like the WSOP, the WPO creates tournaments with big cash prizes and specially designed diamond-studded gold bracelets for the winners. With that said, and with a special thanks to Jade who I admit happens to be my favorite pen-pal, here is my story:

It was Spring 2000, my favorite time of year. The time of rebirth, change, exciting things to come. I had been a roaming journalist and freelance magazine writer, paying my dues as an author during the day and seeking out the best poker games and ladies of the evening at night.

I had been dividing my time between Phoenix, Lake Elsinore, CA. and Las Vegas, making the long meaningful drives along lonely desert highways in my faithful Impala Convertible when a call came from a weekly publisher friend of mine, John Carroll, in Lake Park, FL.

Lake Park is a waterfront community just north of West Palm Beach, which is the home of one of Donald Trump's mansions, MarLago. The conversation went something like this:

CARROLL: 'Hey, Sport, what'cha up to?'

ME: 'Nothing much, John. What's the deal?'

CARROLL: 'I have an opening for a staff writer who knows how to write features. If you want the job, it's yours. When can you be here?'

I had worked for John in the past. He ran a small weekly newspaper WEEKDAY and was a fun boss who loved to take weekend trips with me to Paradise Island in the Bahamas. It took me all of two minutes to decide to accept the position.

He gave me all the time I needed to start on the job. I decided to drive through Tunica, MS. to visit my friend Jack Binion who had sold his interest in Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas and built a new Horseshoe casino in Tunica. It meant a 200-mile detour, but I was in no hurry. I thought it would be fun to surprise Jack. My plans were to drop into his casino, have lunch with him and be on my way.

Jack had other plans.

When I pulled into the parking lot at his casino, the place was jammed with cars. His new horseshoe was close to the Gold Strike Casino and I quickly learned what all the excitement was about.

The Gold Strike and the Horseshoe had teamed up to host the Third Annual Jack Binion World Poker Open, a series of tournaments that offered $4 million in prize money. The 19 scheduled WPO events were spread over a 21-day period and had attracted some of the world's best poker players, including Doyle Brunson, Berry Johnson, Phil Hellmuth, Huck Seed, Scotty Nguyen, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson, Daniel Negreanu, Men 'The Master' Nguyen and defending WPO champion John Juanda.

I arrived at Jack's casino around 11 a.m. There were single-table sit-and-go tournaments all over the place and everybody was trying to win one of them in order to use the winnings to buy into one of the major tournaments.

I figured Jack would be too busy setting up the tournaments to take time for me. I was wrong.

'Where have you been and how's the writing?, Jack said with a big smile. 'Listen, we're having a single table satellite tournament starting at noon. The buy-in's only $60 and if you win it, you can play in my WPO Omaha High-Low tournament tonight which has a buy-in of $540. First place should be between $40,000 and $50,000.'

If Jack Binion hadn't gone into the casino business, he could have been America's best used car salesman.

'Where do I sign up for the satellite?,' I said 'And who do I have to kill to get a room? I imagine you're all sold out on rooms.'

Jack threw an arm around me. 'We are, but we always hold a couple of rooms aside for members of the press,' he said.

I barely had time to refresh myself in the bathroom after my long drive. At 11:55 a.m., I sat down at the satellite. The cards were kind to me and I won it and my 'free' buy-in into the Omaha High-Low tournament.

Jack kept his word and had reserved a suite with a view. I had lunch and flew upstairs for a much needed nap to restore my energy I left a wakeup call for 6 p.m. When it came, I was refreshed and ready to play poker.

While I had played some Omaha High-Low and liked the action, it was by no means my best game I thought I was better at Texas Hold'em or five-card lowball with a joker, which in the late 1990s was the most popular poker game in California Before I sat down, I made up my mind to be aggressive and hammer away when I had the cards.

It worked better than I could ever have hoped for.

In Omaha High-Low, each player receives four cards. In order to qualify for a low hand, a player must have five cards with an eight-high or lower. Otherwise, the high hand wins everything

The cards began coming to me like magic from the opening bell. When our first 15-minute break came, I had a sizable amount of chips in front of me and for the rest of the tournament, the pile kept getting higher and higher

We started the tourney with just under 300 players. The excitement was incredible. I was happy that I had rested before starting the tournament or I could not have functioned under the pressure I faced on every hand.

I didn't realize it, but Nolan Della, a well known poker writer for Card Player Magazine, was recording the event for a story that would later appear in Card Player and on the Internet If you would like to follow the action and the hands that were played, do a quick Google search.

Della wrote that in the final two hours of the tournament, I either called or raised every hand. He said he had never witnessed that kind of action in an Omaha High-Low tournament. To be blunt, I don't even remember doing it. But now I know what a professional quarterback must feel like on Monday Night Football when he is in the zone surrounded by attacking tacklers and trying to find a receiver for that long pass.

I do remember being at the final table. A black woman in her 40s who turned out to be one of the country's top Omaha High-Low player and I collided several times when I put her all-in. Each time, she somehow managed to escape with half the pot.

'What do you have against me?,' she once complained, half in jest 'Don't you like me?'

I simply smiled and said, 'You're terrific, but this is poker.' The other finalists at the table laughed. I finally put her all-in and she left the table unsmiling.

When I knocked out the final player and realized I had won the tournament and $42,709, I got up out of my chair and Della swears I jumped nearly eight feet into the air.

That victory occurred 15 years ago. I keep telling my younger brother, Legs, that I'm going to win another tournament, even bigger than the one in Tunica. Legs merely laughs and reminds me that 'Yesterday's home runs don't win today's ball games'. Thanks for the reminder, brother. It helps keep my head from swelling too big.

Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.

(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter. If you have a unique gambling story to share with him, you may qualify for a cash award. Send your story with all the details to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).