poker superstars: Shooting Star Taping

San Jose’s Bay 101 is near me, so I was pleased to be invited to view the taping of the final table of the Shooting Star tournament, a World Poker Tour event.

I dropped by the day before the taping to have lunch with Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher. That day’s action, the paring down from 45 participants to the final six who would play at the taping, had seen the elimination of all but one “Shooting Star.” Forty-seven poker pros and celebrities had had a bounty of $5,000 each on their heads. Whoever eliminated a Shooting Star got an immediate cash payout at the table of $5,000 plus a T-shirt that read, “I eliminated X.” Usually, X autographed the shirt and posed for a picture with the player who eliminated him or her. Among the stars were Doyle Brunson, T.J. Cloutier, Freddy Deeb, Shannon Elizabeth, Antonio Esfandiari, Chau Giang, Barry Greenstein, Gus Hansen, Dan Harrington, Phil Hellmuth Jr., Phil Ivey, Chip Jett, John Juanda, Phil Laak, Kathy Liebert, Mike Matusow, Tom McEvoy, Michael Mizrachi, Daniel Negreanu, Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Chip Reese, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Tilly, and David Williams.

The next day, I returned for the taping. I didn’t see many of the usual suspects wandering around Bay 101, because most of the poker superstars and all but one Shooting Star bounty had been eliminated.

Linda asked if I would like to be part of the production team, the official script notes recorder. I would love the gig, she assured me, and would be able to see more of the action than anyone in the audience. I agreed.

The team had set up in an adjacent storage room. A thick bundle of cables ran from the room to the set, all taped to the floor. In the room, a bank of monitors sat on a table, each showing the output of a different camera on the set. There’s a boom camera with a very long arm that can be raised from floor level to 20 feet high, which produces what you see when the view swoops in over the set. There are several shoulder cameras. Two cameras at each end of the table operate remotely to zoom in on the players on the opposite half of the table. All run simultaneously and each has its own tape deck on a rack opposite the monitors. All have to be synched up, because later, they will be edited into the show you see on the air. Several engineers monitor and control the whole process. Sound was piped in from the set so that we could hear the running commentary from Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten and what the players were saying. Each player had a clip-on microphone.

They gave me a binder with fields to fill out. Whenever I noted anything interesting, I was to put down the time, what had happened, and which camera provided the best shot. This would help with the final editing job. I was to note all-in confrontations, big bets (called and uncalled), interesting interactions, and the start time of each hand. It kept me busy, but I had a better view of all the action than those who were in the stands on the set.

The final six were Nam Le, Fabrice Soulier, Danny Smith, Chad Brown, David Williams, and Ravi Udayakumar.

There were several interesting confrontations. During the entire play of the final table, fan sympathies lay with the hometown favorite, local player Ravi Udayakumar. Udayakumar played fairly consistently throughout, generally getting involved only with solid hands. He showed a tendency to slow-play big hands, a fact that, except for one participant, seemed lost on the others.

It seemed Udayakumar realized that the others, all pros, would try to push around a newcomer. Consequently, he generally came in only with solid hands. Some unseasoned tournament players who find themselves at a major final table try to find some hand with which to make a stand, so that they can effectively say, “You better not try to push me around, because I don’t need a big hand to call you.” Udayakumar was playing a variant: “You better not try to push me around, because I’m likely to have slow-played a big hand with which to call or check-raise you.”

For example, early on, with blinds of $5,000-$10,000 and antes of $1,000, he flopped middle pair in the big blind in a four-way limped pot. When Soulier bet $22,000 and Le called, so did Udayakumar. He turned four to a flush. Udayakumar and Soulier checked. Le bet $47,000. Udayakumar called, and then Soulier raised $100,000. Le folded. Udayakumar called, which represented about a ninth of his remaining chips. The river brought the flush. Udayakumar checked to the aggressor, undoubtedly planning to raise if Soulier bet. But Soulier checked and mucked his hand when he saw the flush. Whether he had a hand with which he would have called a bet but could not himself safely bet, I won’t know until I see the broadcast on June 7. But I do know that Udayakumar’s game plan was to trap his opponents. It was going to be hard to move him off a hand, and yet the others tried.

Brown was eliminated first, trying to push Udayakumar off a big ace with his A-3 on a board that had an ace and a king.

Williams called him down in a huge pot when Udayakumar made a straight on the turn. Was he likely to be bluffing? It didn’t seem that way, so why call when he kept betting? But, Williams learned. A few hands later, Udayakumar made and checked a flush on the turn. He then bet a bit more than a third of a large pot on the end, and Williams correctly folded.

But Williams called a big bet with only overcards when Udayakumar flopped a set. When Williams hit an ace on the turn, he pushed too hard, betting and getting called on the turn and the river.

The only pot in which Udayakumar was perhaps capitalizing on his reputation caused 22-year-old online player Danny Smith to go out in third place. And Udayakumar wasn’t really out of line. He limped in from the button and Le called from the small blind. Smith raised to $190,000 and Udayakumar reraised that to $590,000. Le folded. Smith debated for a while, and finally moved all in for another $310,000, a bet Udayakumar could hardly get away from. Smith had pocket sixes and Udayakumar had the K Q. It was very close to a coin flip, 53-to-47 in Smith’s favor. A queen on the flop ended the tournament for Smith, with a $340,000 payout. But he was happy, having won his seat in an online satellite. And his whole family was there cheering him on.

At the start of heads-up play, Udayakumar had more than a 2-to-1 chip lead over Le. It took Le just six hands and 10 minutes to come out on top. He had learned, biding his time to the finale. He knew he would need a big hand against Udayakumar’s good but second-best hand to win a big pot. Near the end, he flopped and just called with a straight. He check-raised on the turn and came out swinging for all of his chips on the river, to double up. On the final hand, he bet strongly with two pair to beat Udayakumar’s probable pocket or top pair. It was another hand we’ll need to see on the broadcast, but Le likely beat a big hand for the situation.

Before the Shooting Star, Le’s main claim to fame was being the cousin of two-time WPT champion Tuan Le. This win gave him not only $1,172,800 and a $25,000 WPT championship entry, but fame in his own right. Not only that, but he got a $5,000 bounty for busting the lone remaining Shooting Star, David Williams, who had exited in fourth place with a $280,000 payday.

I saw climactic hands from several vantage points. You’ll always get the best view when the show airs. It’s fun to think that I played a small part in determining what that view was.

Michael Wiesenberg’s The Ultimate Casino Guide, published by Sourcebooks, is available at fine bookstores and at Amazon.com and other online book purveyors. Send requests, remonstrances, and recommendations to queue@CardPlayer.com.