The 1983 World Series of Poker saw a collision of poker’s old and new frontiers. On the one hand, the tournament was wrought with cheating at the hands of one very wealthy, very dubious amateur. On the other hand, it saw its first satellite champion.
Larry Flynt, fresh off an assassination attempt on his life, made his way to Vegas for that year’s event. When Doyle Brunson told Larry at the beginning of the second day that he’s give Flynt 1000-1 odds (Flynt entered the day’s play in last place), Flynt immediately started buying pots for twice their chip value in cold, hard cash. He worked his way up to T250,000 before officials wizened up to the going on. Once he had to rely on skill, he was doomed; he finished in twelfth place.
According to legend, satellites had begun in the late seventies when Tournament Director Eric Drache, desperate for players in order to keep the Series’ streak of increasing numbers each year intact, suggested ten cash game players with approximately $1,000 a piece play for a slot. The result was a huge success, and by 1983, satellites had become a World Series institution. They would eventually be the end of the Series the old guard had known, where the event wasn’t nearly as big a deal as the lucrative side games. Those games dried up when the satellites demanded the table space and the fishes attention.
Amongst the satellite winners in 1983 were Tom McEvoy and Rod Peate. Normally grinders at $5/$10 and $10/$20 cash games, the two had survived remarkable odds to be amongst the nine players to make the final table. The first six were eliminated within an hour and a half of the start of play; that left McEvoy, Peate and Doyle Brunson.
Doyle was the next to go. He flopped top pair and a diamond flush draw against Peate’s three of a kind, getting his chips in and failing to find the fifth diamond. That left the two friends, who McEvoy would later proudly point out, fell outside professional poker’s mold. The two young northerners entered the finale with Peate ahead by a 3:2 margin. McEvoy would turn it around to claim the title.
The final hand would come seven hours into heads-up play. McEvoy had maneuvered himself into the lead by absorbing Peate’s aggression with a patient style of play that forces his buddy to pay him off in spades. Finally, when McEvoy re-upped Peate’s pre-flop raise of Kd-Jd, Rod seemed ready to go home. He shoved all-in only to find himself dominated by McEvoy’s pocket queens. The queens held up, and McEvoy ushered in a new era.
Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com
