Boston bids for U.S. Poker Bowl glory

Last weekend, the poker world was introduced to team poker at the first United States Poker Bowl held in Las Vegas. Founded in 2006, this bowl was created by John Nightingale based on his Seattle-area poker league.

The U.S. Poker League is comprised of 25 teams broken out into five conferences (East, West, North, South and California). I was proud to represent Team Boston in the Eastern Conference, along with fellow poker professionals Greg “Fossilman” Raymer and Brian Wilson.

Rounding out our team was Spiro Mitrokostas, general manager Steve “Dakota” Happas and Boston native and poker fanatic Donnie Wahlberg.

The tournament brought together some of the best players in the world, including former World Series of Poker (WSOP) champions, WSOP bracelet winners and World Poker Tour main event title holders. With this many solid players, we knew we would have our fair share of interesting hands. One such hand occurred at my table in the Eastern Conference preliminary round.

During level 6 (blinds 500 and 1,000, antes 100), I was sitting under the gun (immediately left of the big blind) and looked down to see a mediocre Qs-9s. After I quickly folded, Dan Shak from Team Philadelphia raised to 3,000. As the remaining players folded, Daniel Alaei from Team New York, sitting on the button, raised all-in.

After the blinds folded, Shak called, staking his remaining 3,100 and his tournament life on the hand. Then Shak flipped over Ac-Jd and Alaei showed Th-Td - and the race was on.

The dealer flipped over an intriguing flop for both players: Qc-Tc-6c. Alaei had flopped a set of tens, but Shak had some hope with the nut flush draw and gutshot straight draw. Overall, Shak was a 36:64 underdog heading into the turn.

The turn (9d) gave Shak more outs, now with an open-ended straight draw, keeping his hopes alive. But he was still a 32:68 underdog.

Finally, the river (8s) connected with one of Shak’s outs, giving him a winning straight. This river card allowed him to double up by beating Alaei, who unfortunately lost most of his chips and was eliminated shortly thereafter. Overall, this hand helped Shak reach the final table, where he was eliminated in sixth place.

As for Team Boston, we faired extremely well, placing two players in the final five with almost half of all the chips. However, after Raymer was eliminated on a tough beat, Boston’s own Happas eventually went heads-up against Team Detroit’s Kenna James. Unfortunately, after a valiant effort by Happas, James came out victorious, sending Team Detroit into the finals.

Overall, I had a truly memorable experience as Team Boston had a great showing. I am looking forward to the second U.S. Poker Bowl, scheduled for 2008.

Bernard Lee - Boston Herald

News Added: 29 October, 2007

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