In 1970, Benny Binion put with each other a promotion feat to advertise his gambling establishment in midtown Las Las vega. He sent invites to Johnny Mauve and olive, Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim Preston, et cetera of the world’s greatest card gamers and called it the Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em. 7 of them played cash video games at Binion’s Horseshoe for 3 straight days, when it mored than, Mauve and olive was called “champ” in a ballot of his peers. The next year, 6 participants paid $5,000 each for the right to play in a no-limit Texas Hold ’em “freezeout” competition, where everybody began with the same variety of chips and they played until one guy had all the cash. A year later on, the buy-in increased to $10,000. In the 4 years since, the basic rules of the competition and the quantity of money required to enter have stayed continuous. But the variety of individuals has not. The Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em centerpiece exceeded 100 gamers for the very first time in 1982. It broken 200 in ’91, the first year where the champion declared a seven-figure prize money. In 2002, 631 gamers entered, and the payment was $2 million. After that came 2003. The 34th-annual Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em changed the occasion right into a pop-culture sensation. The numbers — by 2006, 8,773 gamers vied for a first-place reward of $12 million — show how rapid the development was. Online texas hold’em went from a video game comprehended by couple of and played in great smoky backrooms to a tv staple. In this 10th-anniversary dental background, greater than 30 individuals that were component of the occasion discuss what happened and what it meant for the online texas hold’em business.
The Accumulation to the Grow
Chris Moneymaker: In the late ’90s, I used to visit the gambling establishments in Tunica [Mississippi]. There was a online texas hold’em room, but I never ever went in because there had to do with 15 or 20 men therein and the average age had to do with 70 years of ages, and they looked unpleasant. Me and my friends, we had a home video game. We never ever played no-limit hold ’em. After we saw Rounders [which appeared in 1998], we began having fun almost solely no-limit hold ’em.
Brian Koppelman (Rounders cowriter, Grantland contributor): Within the online texas hold’em globe, Rounders had become important. It was the social touchstone for online texas hold’em at the moment. When David Levien and I were writing the movie, all we wanted was for it to be what Restaurant was for us: a movie that men would certainly quote to every various other. You still can’t stroll right into a card room without listening to, “Pay that guy his money.” I think Rounders gave individuals the vernacular and discussed the video game and what it meant to play Texas Hold ’em.1 And the Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em broadcasts were so important in writing Rounders. But we were constantly truly frustrated there was no opening card view.
Henry Orenstein (online texas hold’em gamer, inventor): It was 1981 or ’82. I saw a online texas hold’em show on ESPN, and there were 6 hands straight where the gamer didn’t call, so we could not see what happened! After that the thought struck me that if we put a video camera therein, and we had the ability to see the pros’ cards, that would certainly make the point a lot more fascinating. I called my designers in, and within about 4 weeks we had a functioning model.
Cory Zeidman (2003 centerpiece 39th-place finisher): I think Henry’s innovation was more crucial compared to anything else in taking online texas hold’em to the next degree. It gave viewers inside information — seeing who’s bluffing, who’s not. Those old Globe Collection broadcasts of Gabe Kaplan doing discourse, those were torturous! You didn’t know that the heck had what.
Koppelman: In the last online texas hold’em scene of Rounders, Matt Damon’s personality — initially we had written it so that you didn’t see his cards, so that you didn’t know he had the straight that mirrored Johnny Chan’s straight. And the supervisor said to us, “We should show the cards,” and I said, “No, if you know the cards it is not mosting likely to be as fascinating.” John [Dahl] said, “Let’s put them both up before a target market. The same exact movie. The just distinction remains in one variation you can see Matt’s cards, and in the various other variation you can’t see Matt’s cards.” And we played our variation, the one where you could not see the hand, and it went great. The group was truly surprised when the cards transformed over — it was incredible. But when we played the one where you could see that Matt had flopped the straight, the group was on the brink of their sittings hoping that [John] Malkovich would certainly succumb to it. They were totally involved. It was exactly the hole-card sensation. They wanted to be inside Matt’s going.
John Vorhaus (online texas hold’em reporter, novelist): With the innovation of the opening webcamera, we have the omniscience as a target market that we never ever had before. Currently we’re watching a risk unravel where each gamer in the hand can be considered the protagonist. All of a sudden, we can appearance at online texas hold’em as a workout in storytelling.
Kenna James (38th-place finisher): When I began having fun in ’96, ’97, online texas hold’em was still in the great smoky backrooms. Individuals were ashamed to inform their families that they played online texas hold’em. They would certainly exist and not confess that they enjoyed mosting likely to play a video game of online texas hold’em after work. There was still a great deal of cheating taking place. But it was gradually expanding from that. And this was the tipping point. At Binion’s Horseshoe2 in 2003, there was a feeling that something unique was happening.
ESPN Antes Up
Matt Maranz (exec producer, 441 Productions): I had done a great deal of documentaries for ESPN in the previous, and I’d been throwing the Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em as a documentary probably beginning in such as 2000. And they constantly transformed it down, saying, “Who’s ever mosting likely to watch online texas hold’em on TV?” After that in 2003, they finally wanted to do it. What I had been throwing was a documentary. They had a various idea. What I was throwing isn’t the Globe Collection as you know it.
Annie Fight it out (47th-place finisher): I was very rigid in my evaluation that no one would certainly ever want to watch online texas hold’em on tv. I simply could not imagine that watching a lot of individuals play online texas hold’em would certainly grab anybody’s rate of passion. So, I’m a moron.
Dave Swartz (coordinating producer, 441 Productions): When we strolled right into Binion’s for the very first time, you were instantly struck by what a fascinating team of individuals this is. Online texas hold’em had this stereotype of backroom video games, stogie smoke, perhaps some seediness to it. And that is not what we found at all. When we took a seat to interview individuals, we understood right away — wow, we have met our suit. These are truly fascinating, smart individuals that consider a video game on a degree no one truly recognized at the moment.
Nolan Dalla (supervisor of public connections, Binion’s Horseshoe and the Globe Collection of Poker): “Eccentric” is a great word to explain most online texas hold’em gamers of that era and before. Simply that you would certainly pay $10,000 to play in a online texas hold’em competition makes you a bit various compared to the average individual on the road.
Maranz: There is a saying that the just point more fascinating compared to a online texas hold’em gamer is the individual resting beside them. It was a unique breed of individual that decided to become a professional online texas hold’em gamer. Everybody had a fascinating tale how they reached that seat. And we were positive that was mosting likely to resonate.
Phil Hellmuth (27th-place finisher): I think Matt Maranz is a brilliant. He brought personality right into online texas hold’em. The Globe Online texas hold’em Tour brought cards; Matt Maranz brought personality.
Maranz: We wanted to earn as many shows as feasible from this. That is a company model in TV: You set up once and fire as long as feasible while you can. And we recognized that this had not been simply about the last table, that they bet 4 days before that. And in some concerns, the previously component of the competitors is more fascinating. At the last table, that is a crapshoot, that makes it there. But all the well-known gamers and celebrities and characters exist on Day 1, and you can actually display them and develop arcs and tale lines to obtain to the last table.
Bob Chesterman (elderly coordinating producer, ESPN Initial Entertainment): When Matt and Dave made the links with the gamers, everyone comprehended that we were truly placing our effort and time right into this project and we truly began to gain the trust of everyone. Because in completion, when you are mosting likely to appearance at everybody’s cards, you need a great deal of trust.
Dalla: The auto technicians of the video cams were challenging. They used video cams that just weren’t component of the table the way they are currently. Gamers would certainly show their cards, but would not be positioned before the video cam properly. So they had be asked to move over 2 inches. Or “Can you be certain and show your cards much longer?” Staff would certainly need to go up and advise gamers. If you are at the featured table at the Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em, you do not want to be touched on the shoulder every 5 mins, advised to do these points. But I didn’t truly listen to grievances about it. Most individuals comprehended this was component of a greater great for the video game.
Fred Christenson (elderly supervisor of programming, ESPN): The last significant obstacle was that, whatever the video pc gaming licensing regulating body of Nevada, we needed to obtain their authorization on using the hole-card video cams. As a final point, they were informing us we could not use them. I think Nolan Dalla and those men at Binion’s accepted it, but the video pc gaming compensation needed to come in and make certain the security was right.
Mike Antinoro (elderly coordinating producer, ESPN Initial Entertainment): We let them know this had not been an online occasion, but we needed to show them what type of security measures we would certainly carry the opening cams. I obtained their concern. Appearance, there is an amazing quantity of money at risk. Certainly, there is a great deal of manner ins which individuals we employed could take benefit of the opening video cams.
Chesterman: You had everyone very anxious, and we were such as, “What do we need to do to gain your trust?” I actually positioned a protect there with a shotgun, right outside the curtained-off location where the video clip monitors were, and we said there is just 2 individuals enabled to go in this field, and no one else was allowed.
Maranz: Phil Hellmuth, actually, was a huge help in this. Phil took it after himself to persuade them to permit opening video cams. Without that, I do not think there would certainly have been opening video cams. He mosted likely to them and said, “There will never ever be a online texas hold’em competition in the world that doesn’t have opening video cams. So you can either be in advance or behind.”
Antinoro: Individuals in Nevada, they understood the great points that would certainly come from having actually this on ESPN, so eventually that is truly what won out. I’m uncertain there is anything that we did or revealed them that reduced their worries. It was more an issue of production it clear that we were just mosting likely to do it with the opening webcamera, so they didn’t have any choice.
Chesterman: I think we obtained it dealt with simply someday before the centerpiece began. It was too shut for convenience.
The Chris Moneymaker Tale
Moneymaker: Before I truly began having fun online texas hold’em, I was down, overall, as a bettor. I’d say I was down about $30,000, life time. I might have been a shedding bettor, but I was a lucrative online texas hold’em gamer. I began having fun some in the gambling establishment down in Tunica, and down there, an old man informed me about online online texas hold’em and I wound up obtaining on PokerStars.
Vorhaus: Internet online texas hold’em days back to about 1999, 2000, but it didn’t truly remove initially because the functionality had not been quite there and the marketplace had not been there.
Dalla: 2003 was the first year we had satellite3 qualifiers to the Globe Collection from online online texas hold’em websites. George Fisher, that was the supervisor of online texas hold’em procedures at the Horseshoe, developed a connection with 3 or 4 websites, consisting of PokerStars, and PokerStars consented to run some certifying satellites online.
Moneymaker: I would certainly normally maintain a pair thousand bucks in my PokerStars account. I began with $200, I think it was, and after that I would certainly stand up to $2,000, $2,500, cash out. In April ’03, I had 60 dollars in my PokerStars account. I remember I’d cashed out greater than I wanted to pay some expenses, and after that I began a pretty awful online texas hold’em run. I took a seat to play an 18-player sit-and-go,4 and at that time, PokerStars didn’t have it broken down all nice and cool such as they do currently. The satellites and the cash competitions were all grouped with each other. I saw that there was a $39 sit-and-go with 17 of 18 sittings filled, and I simply clicked on it truly fast to try and obtain the last seat. I simply entered and began having fun. It ended up it was a satellite where the champion made entrance right into another satellite where the top 3 finishers would certainly obtain a seat in the Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em centerpiece. To be honest, I didn’t know it was a satellite. If I understood I never ever would certainly have played it.
David Gamble (Moneymaker’s friend): I understood he was having fun an on the internet competition. I didn’t know the importance — that it was for a seat in the Globe Collection centerpiece. I do not also know that I fully comprehended what that was during that time.
Moneymaker: I won the first satellite, after that I made it to the last table in the last satellite, and I was among the chip leaders. The top 3 obtained sittings in the Globe Collection plus $1,000 pocket money. 4th place paid $8,000 cash. My friend Bruce [Peery] was watching me play from another computer system, and he saw me beginning to shed chips. He called me up and said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I’m attempting to obtain 4th place.” And he’s such as, “Guy, do not do that. Take the dang seat! You will never ever reach play because competition ever again.” But I said, “Why do I want to bet the best on the planet? I play as a pastime. I’m betting my house.” But Bruce convinced me to pursue the seat after promising me $5,0005 for fifty percent my activity. So I went in advance and won the seat.
“It ended up it was a satellite where the champion made entrance right into another satellite where the top 3 finishers would certainly obtain a seat in the Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em centerpiece. To be honest, I didn’t know it was a satellite. If I understood I never ever would certainly have played it.” — Chris Moneymaker
Mike Moneymaker (Chris’s father): He called me and informed me he’d won a seat. I said, “A seat to what?” He said, “The Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em.” I said, “Globe Collection of Online texas hold’em? What the heck is that?” I’d never ever listened to of it. I said, “I’ve listened to of the Globe Collection, but that is baseball.”
Moneymaker: The week before I left, Bruce informed me he didn’t have the $5,000 and could not do it.
Gamble: Chris called me, so we mosted likely to a sporting activities bar down in Franklin [Tennessee], and he said, “Pay attention, here is the deal: I obtained this seat and I’ve obtained X quantity, but I’m brief.” I composed him a look for $2,000. It resembled buying a lottery ticket.6
Mike Moneymaker: Chris informed me he wanted to sell a portion. I said, “OK, I’ll take 20 percent.” Individuals ask if I thought I was production a great financial investment or simply attempting to assist my youngster out. It was a bit of both.
Moneymaker: My backer was called “Gamble.” I think the tale was so unique, it almost looked like it was comprised currently. That information kind of obtained shed in the shuffle.
Mike Moneymaker: You know how you obtain among those strange sensations? As quickly as he called me and informed me he’d won the seat, I had this feeling that he’s gonna win the darn point. I informed my spouse about it, but I wish I’d written it down and sealed it and put it in a safe-deposit box.
Dalla: The day before the centerpiece, I’m strolling through the corridor at Binion’s, and outside the online texas hold’em workplace, there were 37 gamers standing there, all wearing t-tee t shirts with the logo design of PokerStars. PokerStars had them registering for the competition en masse. I thought, Oh, cool, there is thirty-some individuals originating from this website. But I didn’t think anything of it past that. And I had no idea, of course, but because line was a specific fella called Chris Moneymaker, that eventually changed online texas hold’em background.
Dan Goldman (vice-president of marketing, PokerStars): We had 37 qualifiers entered. That was one of the most of any website. We understood that it was mosting likely to get on ESPN. We wanted to attempt to obtain some brand name direct exposure on nationwide tv for much less compared to it cost to buy advertising. Although, there were a great deal of conversations over whether it made good sense to send out a quantifiable piece of our liquidity to a brick-and-mortar gambling establishment. We were pretty small at the moment, and we’re discussing sending out $370,000 to Binion’s. And back in 2003, online websites were viewed by gambling establishments and online texas hold’em rooms as competitors. The card rooms that we wanted to work with saw us as a risk, as an alternative to having fun live online texas hold’em.
Norman Chad (ESPN color analyst): We had a Las Las vega local that assisted us a great deal with the manufacturing, called Lou Ruby. Lou’s among my favorite individuals of perpetuity. Lou’s such a personality. If you need anything done, he knows a man that knows a man. 2 telephone call and he can obtain it done.
Lou Ruby (sporting activities handicapper, ESPN manufacturing assistant): Matt [Maranz] obtains the job from ESPN and get in touches with me, and he’s simply gonna resemble a sponge. Initially, he simply wanted to obtain some information over beverages and supper. Deep in the rear of my mind, I’m attempting to score a task, and I do know more about gambling compared to Matt will ever know, but I didn’t know squat about online texas hold’em. So he goes, “Well, here is my problem, I need to obtain the video cams on the champion on Day 1 — not Day 5 when they hit the last table.” I go, “Matt, you are asking me to pick the champion?” And jokingly he goes, “Lou, I’ll give you 25 picks and I’ll give you 3 days and you are still not gonna pick the champion.” So I took it as a difficulty. “Truly, Matt? OK, simply for that, I’m gonna give you the champion.” So Matt hires me, currently I’m helping ESPN — dream, right? I do not care if I’m the pizza boy, I’m helping ESPN, my inspect originates from Mickey Computer mouse.7 So I’m such as, OK, I gotta find this champion, I gotta do everything I can to thrill these men and secure a task at ESPN. So first point I gotta do is jump on a satellite and play a video game, so I understand what the heck I’m doing. So I enter into a $175 buy-in and certainly, very first time I’ve ever played online texas hold’em in my life in Las Las vega, I’m resting beside Chris Moneymaker. First face-off I ever enter is with Chris Moneymaker. Suddenly, he stares at me with them sunglasses. I obtained daunted. I do not obtain daunted by anyone. When I inform you daunted, the goose bumps, hair increasing on your arms, everything. Grow. This entire ambiance came over me. So I resembled, That the heck is this man and why is he looking at me such as this? So he defeats me, he victories the table. Later he comes up to me and goes, “Are you aware anyone that desires to buy a seat? I won this point for $40, I’m damaged, I’ll sell it for $8,000 today.” We took a seat, we had a drink, we were simply bullshitting, and I resembled, “Guy, you gotta play it. You obtained a chance, you know?”
Moneymaker: I do not keep in mind that happening. I know I played satellites beforehand. And I had beers with several various individuals. So it is certainly an opportunity. But I know I had not been attempting to sell my seat. I had not been enabled to sell my seat. I was attempting to sell items of it. I wanted to sell as long as I could, but no one was buying an item of some arbitrary man that they didn’t know anything about.
Ruby: Monday rolls about, first day of the competition, I enter into my first meeting with ESPN. All the manufacturers existed. And Matt says, “This is Lou, he’s mosting likely to attempt to help us here.” So Matt’s first agenda: “OK, men, let’s obtain a listing of all individuals that we want to obtain the video cams on right away.” They’re talking Howard Lederer, Johnny Chan, T.J. Cloutier, they’re simply tossing all the heavyweights out there. I increased my hand, I go, “Men, I gotta inform you something. I played online texas hold’em with this man on Saturday, I obtain this amazing ambiance with this man, and the kid’s name is Moneymaker.” And the giggling later was much like, “Matt, this is the man?” Believe me, I was the laughingstock when I said that.
Moneymaker: I do not remember meeting Lou before the competition, but I do remember him turning up to me on Day 2. He turned up to me on Day 2 and said, “You are my dark equine to win this point. I such as the way you play, you appearance concentrated. And I think you are mosting likely to win.”
Maranz: Midway through the competition, he said, “I obtained my pick to win. It is that man there, Chris Moneymaker.” That is a real tale.
Days 1 & 2
Barry Greenstein (49th-place finisher): Each year, the centerpiece was reaching be larger and larger. It reached 839 gamers in 2003; the year before remained in the 600s. So we’re obtaining 30 percent development. In 2003, $2.5 million for first place, that was a great deal of money. Among the real turning points was the very first time the centerpiece hit a million bucks for first place. Currently you didn’t also need to win it to obtain a million.
Peter Alson (online texas hold’em journalist): That was the beginning of seeming like the Internet was having actually an impact. It leapt about 200 individuals from the year before, and we understood that was mostly because of the Internet.
Dalla: There was a certain lack of space for tables. We needed to yank out all the sittings in the sportsbook and the delicatessens beside it. We literally tossed down online texas hold’em tables that were of the variety that you had see in a Thursday-night online texas hold’em home video game, where you needed to draw the legs out and bring up some steel chairs. These were horribly unpleasant steel chairs that the gamers paid $10,000 to being in!
Howard Lederer (19th-place finisher): It was type of a checkpoint each year — what’s the health and wellness of the online texas hold’em community, what’s the development of the video game? Everybody was constantly sweating that number. How many individuals are mosting likely to play? You were taking a seat at the essential competition of the year, and it truly does imply everything to you. Regardless of how often times you’ve played in it, you obtain the butterflies and goose bumps when you stroll therein.
Chad: When I strolled right into the Horseshoe, when the point was beginning, I contacted my closest friend back in Washington, and I said to him, “Where has this been all our lives?” I said, “I wish you could come out here and appearance at what I’m looking at.” This was a great society that I was so happy to be about. It was gritty. This was the pre-Internet group, so this is Amarillo Slim and Doyle Brunson and Howard Lederer and Johnny Chan. It was a great, strange go across area of old-time gambling America.
Jeff Shulman (31st-place finisher, Card Gamer publication editor): The first point I remember thinking is, Wow, every solitary gamer in this room is wearing sunglasses. That is strange.
Greg Raymer (2004 WSOP champion): At that time, you had the tendency to know individuals. You understood most of the names and the faces. If you didn’t know someone, they probably just weren’t great. Nowadays, I see someone I do not acknowledge, particularly if they’re young, I presume they’re probably a great online gamer. But that old stereotype, “If I have no idea that this man is, he’s probably none great” — that was a great stereotype.
Lederer: You looked throughout the table and you saw a couple of men with a PokerStars Tee shirt. It was awfully nice of the Internet gamers to point themselves bent on us.
Dan Harrington (third-place finisher): You had a lot of individuals such as Moneymaker that won their satellites, and they were simply cannon fodder, that is how we looked at them.
Moneymaker: Truthfully, there was no thought in my going
of winning this point. If I would certainly have in some way cashed,8 I’d have been delighted. Literally, this was my entire strategy: Take a breath 5 secs before I made any decisions; if it was inspected to me, I was mosting likely to bet; if someone wager before me, if I didn’t have something I would certainly fold, and if I had something I would certainly call.
Goldman: I remember having actually a discussion with Chris where he was contrasting the framework of the Globe Collection to the framework of the competitions he had played online, which was the point at which I learned this was his first live competition.
Moneymaker: The PokerStars men must have thought I was simply a yahoo that had no chance to win. I would certainly most likely to them and say, “Guy, I obtained 10,000 in chips, the blinds9 are 25/50, I do not also need to play a hand! I can fold my way to Day 2!” Every evening, I mosted likely to speak with Dan and I resembled, “I can fold my way to this, I can fold my way to that, I can fold my way right into the cash!” He would certainly say, “You do not understand, you can’t simply maintain folding, you are mosting likely to need to play hands.” And I said, “Yes, I’m mosting likely to play aces and kings and I’ll play sets.10 That is all I’ll play.” And he said, “You are mosting likely to need to open your range. You can’t fidget and play such as that.”
Goldman: I remember obtaining the sense from him that this framework was so beneficial to gamers that it looked like he could obtain his $10,000 back without taking any chances — which wasn’t the objective we wanted him to have.
Moneymaker: Dan Harrington went to my beginning table, but I didn’t know that Dan Harrington was.11 Dan was resting there being as peaceful as can be. He was having fun super-tight. So he had not been also on my radar until a pair hrs in, when someone said, “Nice hand, champ,” after he won a pot. I needed to appearance at the photos on the wall surface of the previous champs and see that he was.
Harrington: I definitely remember having fun with Chris that first day, because he was giving me difficulty. I asked about with some various other pros, “That is this man?” And they said, “I have no idea. Simply some youngster off the Internet.” That is all they understood. And that is what he was, simply some youngster off the Internet.
Moneymaker: I overslept on Day 2 and I literally thought I was mosting likely to be gotten rid of. I figured you do not show up, you do not reach play. It is pretty common knowledge since your chips simply obtain blinded off until you show up. But at that time, I thought I was done.
Shulman: Moneymaker went to my table on Day 2, and I remember there was something about his sunglasses where you could see the representation of his chips and the table. His sunglasses were so protecting of his eyes — that was a bit various compared to what I was used to seeing at the online texas hold’em table. His were simply pure mirrors. So it resembled, I have no idea that this youngster is but he appearances pretty cool. I also remember he was drinking a great deal of Red Bulls.
Moneymaker: My Day 2 table consisted of Johnny Chan and Phil Ivey. I didn’t know that Phil Ivey was. He was a young black youngster with a great deal of chips. He was simply Phil Ivey — he had not been Phil Fuckin’ Ivey then. But I had a hard time on Day 2, and my struggle was with Johnny Chan. Chan was simply abusing me. Every time I increased, he’d return over the top. Some man informed me at supper, “You have monsters-under-the-bed disorder. You constantly think that the challenger has the best hand. But they rarely do.”
Sam Farha (second-place finisher): I didn’t play the centerpiece a great deal, particularly before 2003. The just way I play it’s if there is nothing else cash video game taking place. In 2003, I went to Binion’s. There was no big cash video game, so I decided to play the centerpiece in the nick of time.
Greenstein: Sammy and I were with each other at completion of Day 2, and I had a straight attract and I semibluffed all-in with one card to go versus Sammy. He called and I hit my straight on the river. Sammy obtained up from the table and began leaving. I said, “Sammy, you have me protected.”12 And he said, “What’s the distinction? It is shut.” I said, “I think you have 5,000 left.” He said, “Well, what can I do with 5,000?” I said, “Begin, you can’t simply quit.” So he rests down and he goes all-in dark13 for his last 5,000. And someone phone telephone calls him, and he increases up. And the very next hand, he goes all-in dark again. And someone phone telephone calls him, and he increases up to 20,000. There were 7 hands left in the evening, and he proceeds to play all 7.
