 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
While players from outside the USA had been attending the World Series of Poker for a decade, the event hadn’t taken on a truly international flavor. The Main Event was played with a uniquely American version of poker, with Texas Hold’em seldom seeing play outside the states. In addition, every winner of the vent to that point was an American born on American soil.
In 1987, the Series finally took on a flavor befitting its international flavor. It was a year in which TJ Cloutier won his first bracelet; Dan Harrington made his first final table; Howard Lederer, 23, became the youngest player to make a final table. Those stories paled in comparison to that of the champion.
Johnny Chan was ironically enough the epitome of the American dream. Born in China, he’d emigrated to the States without a word of English in his repertoire. In 1977, at age sixteen, he journeyed to Las Vegas for the first time and between trips to the craps pit saw his first poker. Losing all but $200 of his roll in the pits, poker built it back up. He had $20,000 within a week before losing it all heads-up to a shark. He borrowed money to get home, came back again and again and learned the old-fashioned way, eventually finding riches through the American game.
Now, a decade later, Chan was en route to completing the first half of one of poker’s greatest achievements. With three players left, he got into the first million dollar pot in World Series history, beating poker author Bob Ciaffone when Ac on the river gave Chan a second pair. It left him with a massive chip lead against Frank Henderson, a man thirty years Chan’s senior.
Chan and Henderson knew each other well. They played in the same games in Houston and knew one another’s games. Henderson was the more aggressive of the two; Chan, despite entering final table play with the biggest stack, had played a patient game rather than throw his weight around.
In the final hand, Chan started the action with a raise to T60,000. Henderson, holding pocket fours, chose to move all-in for another T240,000; Chan made the call with As-9c. The flop was Kd-8h-5c. When the turn came Tc, Henderson seemed on the verge of getting back into the match, but Chan’s magical 9h fell on the river, giving him the hand and the Championship. It was an exceptional performance, but it would be the next year’s events that would make it the stuff of legend.
Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com
