Foxwoods WPT: The Hand, Kenny Chanthamala, and the Final TV Table
5/2/2006 12:00:00 AM
The break in the action gave everybody about 15 minutes to mill around. Todd, the floor manager who had helped earlier, found me and told me that Mike Ward had suggested that I be given a tour of the brand new Foxwoods card room.
We walked out of the tournament room and began talking. I asked Todd if anything out of the ordinary had happened at the tourney. He said,
“No, not really…except for that.”
We were walking by a section of a wall that had been freshly painted. I resisted the urge to make a crack about poker being as exciting as watching paint dry. I wanted to hear more about what caused a paint crew to be needed, but figured that I should pay attention to where I was going in case I lost Todd in the crowd.
We got to the card room and started walking around while
Todd explained where the various card games are played. The room contained well over 100 tables set up in a pattern that resembled a box of matches dumped out onto a kitchen table.
I’m sure that it made sense to someone, but it certainly escaped me. Within a few minutes of our entry, two very serious, suited gentlemen approached, looked at Todd briefly, ignored his pleasant greeting, and said to me,
“Mr. Brooks? We need to ask you to stop what you are doing.”
“Umm, what am I doing?”
“We understand that you want to interview Foxwoods staff. You can’t do that.”
“All right. I drove 140 miles to come here and write about the poker tournament. If I can’t do that, I’ll just go home and tell my employers that it didn’t work out. I can write about this instead.” They began to look uncomfortable as I stared at their ID badges.
“We hope you understand that this isn’t our decision.”
“Okay, who do I have to talk to?”
“Only the Director of Poker Operations can allow interviews.”
I suggested that since I worked with the Foxwoods Public Relations people to set this all up, they should check with them.
That’s when I found out that the PR staff doesn’t work on weekends, at least not this weekend.
“Fine. Let’s go talk to the Director.”
“Perhaps I should just call her.”
“Okay. But before you do, let me tell you what I want to write about, just in case she’s interested. I’m not really that concerned with who wins or loses; I want to write about what goes on at a major poker tournament; about the people who make it work. About the things that nobody ever sees on television, and about the people who never even get mentioned. I’m not here to cause trouble, and if I can’t do my job, I’d just as soon leave.”
One of the two suits looked at the other and said, “I think it’s a great idea; let’s hope everybody else does. Make the call.” Then with a quick look at me, “Nice to meet you. Gotta go.”
Todd went back to the tournament, and the remaining manager disappeared to make his call, asking me to wait for him where I stood. Then began the most self-conscious 15 minutes of my life.
It gave me time to watch the goings-on in the card room. It was bedlam. The sound of one person stacking chips can be soothing. A thousand of them nervously fumbling is anything but.
Add to that racket the voice of the woman shouting names or initials of players along with directions to open seats into the P.A. system.
The ceiling is low, maybe 8 or 9 feet, and that amplifies the noise. The room is decorated in the same garish palette of colors as the rest of the casino and the chairs look uncomfortable. Three out of the 5 senses are assaulted even standing in the Foxwoods card room. Thankfully, since it’s a no-smoking room, my nose and throat survived intact.
After a while, my house-appointed advocate whizzed by saying, “It looks good for you. I have to make another call.” Excellent. I felt better knowing that there were many levels of bureaucracy handling the most insignificant issues at Foxwoods.
After another 10 minutes, he returned accompanied by a new character. “Okay…you’re all set. Everybody is fine with you interviewing staff, but we must insist that all interviews take place while John here is present. You see we want to make sure that you receive accurate information.”
From the perspective of Foxwoods, it was probably a good thing that I had been born yesterday, because otherwise I probably would have thought that they were just trying to stifle my ability to do my job and protect themselves from anyone who may inadvertently let their guard down. It wouldn’t have been good for business if I could have gotten someone to admit on tape that they hate poker players or thought that the WPT was fixed.
Relax. They don’t…and it’s not.
John, my chaperone, looked about as comfortable with the whole idea as he would have if he worked at a zoo and his supervisor told him to guard the lions until the door to the cage could be fixed.
“Just lean up against it while I run and get a new padlock. Don’t let them know you’re scared. They can smell fear.”
He and I both knew that from this moment forward, he was personally responsible for anything anyone said to me, and I did my best not to remind him of it.
On my way back to the tournament, I asked him about the wall repair. Apparently, a player was less than thrilled to be knocked out and assaulted the building rather than his opponent.
I was impressed because the wall looked for all the world like it was made of concrete. Not even Chuck Norris punches concrete walls. John wouldn’t speculate on the I.Q. of the guilty party. Another couple of players had been knocked out while I was having my picaresque adventure, so the reward for surviving even one more place was getting substantial. The room was even more somber than it was when I left.
One person who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle was a tournament player who had been knocked out on the first day, but had remained to watch the festivities.
Gavin Smith looks to be in his mid to late 20’s and doesn’t go out of his way to make himself noticeable. His football jersey, jeans and worn sneakers don’t give any indication that he is one of the most feared tournament players in the world.
He’s near the top of the standings and in the running to be named WPT player of the Year. And he really likes playing at Foxwoods.
“I played in my first big tournament here. Years ago, some buddies made the drive down from outside of Toronto, about 8 hours, and I decided to tag along. I actually did pretty well, and I’ve been coming back ever since. This is a nice place to play and the people here really take good care of us [players].”
Gavin considers himself a “live” player who also plays online. “I have a relationship with Full Tilt.” Asked about whether his background in live play gives him an advantage over the new breed of Internet qualifying tournament players, he responded, “Yes, I think it does. It’s a lot easier to make the transition to online play. Some online players have trouble competing face-to-face.”
Mike Ward apparently agrees. He was careful not to denigrate the skills displayed by the online qualifiers, but he admitted that there were marked differences.
“Out of the 431 entries in the main event, about 80 came from the internet.
If anything, the Internet players have above-average skills at the table. They play so many hands that they seem to have seen everything at least once.
No situation really surprises them. But most of them have absolutely no ‘poker face.’
And the way they handle their chips is often awkward. That’s where the B&M guys (players from the live ‘brick and mortar’ world) have the advantage.”
I asked Gavin how this year’s tournament experience compared to others. He laughed a little.
“This tournament sucked as far as results go. I got knocked out early.”
I asked for particulars.
“I was in fairly good shape a few hours into the first day and was dealt pocket 7s. I made a small bet and got called. The flop came down 7 6 5. I made a bigger bet and was called. The turn was a 6 and I pushed all in.
The river was another 6. The other guy had ace-6. My full house lost to quad sixes. You know…it just happens sometimes.
He had to catch ‘perfect-perfect’ to beat me and he did. It’s happened to me before, and I’ve done it to other people before, too. If you play for while you learn to accept stuff like this.”
His serenity made a big impression on me. He was wearing a baseball cap with a Black Velvet Canadian whiskey logo. Maybe a little Black Velvet helps in times like those.
Todd was on break again. There are always a few floor managers watching the tournament, one for each table at the later stages.
But, like the dealers, they need to keep their level of focus very high, so they frequently substitute for each other under the direction of Mike Ward. He had a few minutes to kill so we talked about his perspective toward the WPT event.
I wanted to ask him whether he was surprised to find that I had survived triage down in the poker room, but I figured it would serve no purpose other than to make my constant companion, John, nervous.
I asked Todd if he liked it when the casino hosted events like this one. “I like the tournaments a lot. My favorite part of my job is prepping for big events. We do all this ‘lead-up’ work to get everything scheduled and I really enjoy it when a big event kicks off.” I asked him to tell me some stories of funny things that happened during the Foxwoods Classic.
“There really haven’t been any. There isn’t much humor here; for us it’s all business. Sometimes the players joke with each other a little, but there isn’t even much of that.”
There went my last chance at an outrageous story.
One interesting facet of Todd’s perspective is that he is an ex-dealer and in his position as ‘floor’ he has to have a complete understanding of the game, but he doesn’t play. I asked him whether he felt it was a hindrance to him in his profession. “Not at all. I enjoy the excitement of the game and really respect the strategy and complexity of it, I just don’t enjoy actually playing it.” After a long thought he said,
“I suppose that there are plenty of bartenders who don’t drink.”
I would have continued with Todd except there were a series of explosions at the tables.
For the first time since I had arrived, Mike Ward, the players, and the viewers were all buzzing.
The tournament was down to its final 11 players. Once that number reached 10, the final 2 tables would be consolidated, and play at a single table would continue until the last 6 survivors (the “TV Table”) were determined.
The tournament was being played “hand-for-hand” which means that at each table the play would halt whenever a hand finished.
Play would begin again only after the hand at the other table was also complete. In that way, players are prevented from stalling in hopes that someone at the other table would bust out and thereby increase everyone else’s payday. Hand-for-hand isn’t a popular time for the players because as the play slows, tension mounts.
At the table with 6 players, The Hand had begun.
Shorthanded poker is an aggressive game. Players who know their business will push their good hands harder than they will at a full table of 10 players.
With only a handful of opponents, a powerful starting hand figures to have an easier time dominating. Good players know that they can be very aggressive.
The blinds were $10k/$20k and all players were paying a $3k ante. Brent Keller, with a stack of about $850k made a raise of about $40k.
Kenny Chanthamala, who had survived an all-in confrontation as an underdog about 40 minutes earlier (he had caught a card to overtake his opponent and knock him out of the tournament), had a hand that he felt was strong enough to wager his tournament life on.
He pushed his stack into the center. Ron Wilson, in late position pushed his stack in as well. Keller instantly called both all-in bets and showed KK. Kenny flipped over AA.
That was the first explosion I heard. Ron slowly turned over the other pair of aces. Then came the second explosion. Keller was shaken, obviously. Everyone in the tournament room ran toward the table. The 5 players at the other table got up and crowded around. Even Mike Ward was shocked. He mumbled something about never having seen anything like it into his microphone.
The only person not rushing the table was Kenny Chanthamala. He walked slowly away, past the ropes, past the crowd, until he stood 15 feet away from the last of the spectators, alone, facing up into a corner of the room. To no one in particular he said, “I could be out on this hand.” The scene was surreal. I looked at the table and heard the crowd thundering, and then looked back at Kenny and the sound seemed to stop. He was in his own private bubble of silence. No one even noticed him. He stood with his hands at his sides and stared into space.
Ward announced, “Okay, let’s see the flop.” The cards came down 7 4 5 rainbow.
“Let’s see the turn card.”
The noise that came from the crowd was almost deafening. Kenny’s chin crashed down onto his chest. He turned and slowly walked back through the giddy mob to see for himself that a King had been dealt. Then he walked back out to his lonely station, back to where the silence was, and went back to staring.
The river card was immaterial. The turn card gave Keller the lock. And it ended the tournament for both Chanthamala and Wilson.
It took 20 minutes for play to resume because the surviving players had to redraw for seats at the lone remaining table. The room was in chaos. More than one player was talking about the possibility that there will never be another hand like that played in the WPT.
Chanthamala could not be consoled. Even when Mike Ward counted out his $67,000 stack of bills, shoved it into a Foxwoods plastic bag, and handed it to him, he seemed incapable of raising his chin far from his chest. It was easily the most tragic circumstance not involving death I have ever witnessed.
Whether it was a fitting postscript to The Hand is debatable, but Brent Keller was the next player to be eliminated, going out in 9th place. He had bet his stack on a straight draw, but he had already used up all the good luck he was allotted at Foxwoods.
Approximately one hour later the TV Final Table had been decided. That final hour was to say the least, anticlimactic. The players seemed exhausted, and their play in some cases might have been called questionable.
The final day at Foxwoods was a television show rather than a poker tournament.
Anyone reading this has seen the WPT set, with the rotating spotlights, the flashing floor, and all the trappings that make the series so popular.
But for someone who had seen such excitement and horror the previous day, the regimented final table was a significant letdown. No longer were the spectators allowed to sit just a few feet behind the players. No photography was allowed.
And no talking, dammit. Can’t you see we’re running a TV show here?
The entire final table was decided in exactly 120 hands of poker, which any online player at a 6-max table can play in about an hour and a half. The show took 6 hours; a painful average of 20 hands per hour. The first hour of play saw 2 players eliminated. Almost 3 hours (and about 73 hands) later, the 4th place finisher was gone. Another 10 hands were played and the table was heads-up.
Out comes the money. And 30 minutes later the winner, Victor Ramdin, is $1.33 million richer.
The final day is all about the pageantry of the WPT. But it isn’t the soul of a tournament.
Kenny Chanthamala’s silent struggle is what this event was all about for me.