Who Says Nobody Remembers Second?

Hello,

There is an old adage in poker that states "nobody remembers who came in second." This lends itself to further examination. Do people really forget who came in second? If one remembers who came in first but not who they had to beat to win, what does that say of the winner? Over the relatively long 39 year history of the World Series of Poker Main Event, many notable players have finished in second place. Did you know that Doyle Brunson finished in second place (1980)? Did you know that T. J. Cloutier finished runner-runner in the Big One twice? Here, I will examine some of the more famous seconds and the stories behind them.

I got the idea for this post after reading an article in Card Player magazine by the excellent poker historian and writer James McManus. In the article, McManus describes many of the historic WSOP Main Events. He does not particularly address the issue of second place finishers, however he does talk about two important heads-up battles that changed the face of poker in the final Main Event of the 1970s and the first of the 1980s. In 1979, Bobby Hoff, a seasoned professional poker player, lost the heads-up battle against rank amateur and businessman Hal Fowler. Fowler had begun the final table with just 2,000 chips of the more than half a million in play at a table that including three time Main Event champion Johnny Moss, Bobby Baldwin (after whom Bobby's Room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas in named) and Crandall Addington (who finished second to Bruson in 1978 and has made the top ten spots in the Main Event eight times) and proceeded to double-up hand after hand after hand to get to heads-up. On the final hand, Fowler outdrew Hoff's A-A with 7-6o after calling a pot-sized bet on the flop with just a gutshot straight draw. The straight came on the turn and when the money went in, Hoff was drawing dead. After Howler's victory, other average poker players began to think that they would be able to win big money at the WSOP. The following year, the number of Main Event entrants increased nearly 40% from 54 to 73 players. The year 1979 (or possibly 1979), according to McManus in Card Player, was also the year that $1,000 single table Main Event satellites began allowing even a relatively small time player to enter the high stakes event. Remember, $1,000 in 1979 is roughly equivilent to $3,000 today putting the cost of an entry ticket to the Main Event at a hefty $30,000.

The 1980 Main Event saw a brash young gin player from New York City, who had only been playing no-limit hold 'em for a few months, beat the legendary two-time Main Event champion Doyle Brunson in heads-up play. The late Stu Ungar, of whom it was said that he actually got better as the tournament progressed, is often considered by many to be the greatest poker player ever. That is a bold statement but results don't lie. After winning the Main Event in 1980 he decided once wasn't enough so he did it again the year after in 1981. If you want to argue that beating 73 and 75 players respectively in back-t0-back Main Events, remember that Ungar won it all again in 1997 when there were 312 entrants. And in 1980, he won a bracelet in no-limit Deuce to Seven Lowball the day before he won the Main Event. In total, Ungar won five bracelets, three from the Main Event, the aforementioned bracelet and one from 1983 in 7 Card Stud. He also has fifteen WSOP cashes which includes eleven final tables (one of those was a Main Event final table in 1990 when he finished in ninth place. Not too bad for a guy who couldn't keep the straw out of his nose for 99% of his life and didn't play in all that many tournaments. Remember, tournament poker wasn't what it is today. You would not want to be sitting across the table from Ungar who was not only better than you, but would make the Poker Brat himself, Phil Hellmuth, seem like an ordinary guy. OK, so who finished second to Ungar in 1980?

After winning the Main Event twice in back-to-back years, Johnny Chan lost the Main Event in 1989 to Phil Hellmuth. What would the world be like today if Chan had made it a three-peat and Hellmuth finished second? Would he be the famous name he is today? Would he have eleven bracelets? Remember, Hellmuth was a relatively unknown 24 year old kid when he won the Main Event. But he had to have been a special player as is evidenced by his record. Hellmuth would have to wait until 1992 to win his second of eleven bracelets but would do something incredibly spectacular in 1993. Not only did he win three bracelets that year (all in hold 'em like the rest of his bracelets), he would do it in consecutive days winning event numbers 7, 8 and 9 from April 26-28.

Hey, I thought this post was supposed to be about second place finishers. You see. Even I am guilty of raising the status of the winner while relegating the second place finisher to the back seat. But while winning is everything, consider the following second place finishers. Dewey Tomko finished second twice in the Main Event, once in 1982 when he lost to Jack "Treetop" Strauss after whom the expression "a chip and a chair" was coined (and from said tournament as well) and again in 2001 when he lost to Juan Carlos Mortensen. The 2001 Main Event final table must have been a treat to watch. It included Phil Hellmuth (5th), Mke Matusow (6th and his first of two Main Event Final tables and four deep runs finishing 87th in 2004 and 30th in 2008), Tomko and Phil Gordon (4th). Daniel Negreanu narrowly missed making that stacked final table finishing in eleventh. Another famous player has also twice been denied the glory of winning it all. T. J. Cloutier finished runner-up in 1985 to Bill Smith, a table that including another forgotten second place finisher Jesse Alto who lost to Brunson in 1976 when his A-J was run down by Doyle's famous ten-deuce. Johnny Moss was also present at his sixth Main Event final table. Cloutier again finished runner-up in 2000 when Chris "Jesus" Ferguson won it all at a final table that included James McManus (5th), Hasan Habib (4th), "Captain" Tom Franklin (8th) and Mickey Appleman (9th). Annie Duke, who was nine months pregnant at the time, just missed the final table finishing in 10th place. And of course, who can forget Erik Seidel whose second place finish was immortalized in the movie Rounders when he lost to Johnny Chan in 1988? Need I say more?

In the modern era there have been some notable seconds as well. Who can ever forget Sam Farha and his runner-up finish to Moneymaker? It is hard to put Moneymaker's win into proper context without considering who he beat to get there. If he had won a tournament full of no name players most would probably still think the name Moneymaker was fictitious. David Williams, who in 2004 was an up-and-coming professional poker player and future bracelet winner, finished second to Greg "Fossilman" Raymer (see this post for my thoughts on the modern day Main Event winner). And let us not forget Paul Wasicka who has already proven his skills and that his second place finish was no fluke. He has won the NBC National Heads-up Championship (2007) and finished fourth at the L.A. Poker Classic just three days prior to his heads-up win for nearly half a million dollars.

But don't feel too badly for Erik Seidel or T.J. Cloutier. Together, they have won fourteen bracelets and have almost $18 million in tournament winnings. As for the other famous seconds, who can forget the likes of Doyle Brunson, Dewey Tomko and Johnny Chan? Most of the notable seconds have done very well for themselves, garnishing over forty WSOP bracelets between them. Of the nine famous second place finishers mentioned here, only Hoff and Wasicka have yet to win a bracelet and expect at least Wasicka to earn his fair share of bracelets in the coming years. The money won amongst these great players is in the tens of millions of dollars in tournaments alone. They have all earned what every poker player wants and that is the respect and admiration of their peers. So while the first place finisher is immortalized, second place isn't as bad as most would make it out to be. Truth be told, if I didn't win it all, second place would look awfully good to me.

Listing of those second place finishers mentioned in this post (number of bracelets won in parenthesis)
1979 - Bobby Hoff (0) to Hal Fowler
1980 - Doyle Brunson (10) to Stu "The Kid" Ungar
1982 - Dewey Tomko (3) to Jack "Treetop" Strauss
1985 - T. J. Cloutier (6) to Bill Smith
1988 - Erik Seidel (8) to Johnny "The Orient Express" Chan
1989 - Johnny Chan (10) to Phil "Poker Brat" Hellmuth
2000 - T. J. Cloutier to Chris "Jesus" Ferguson
2001 - Dewey Tomko to Juan Carlos Mortensen "El Matador"
2003 - Sam Farha (2) to Chris Moneymaker
2004 - David Williams (1) to Greg "Fossilman" Raymer
2006 - Paul Wasicka (0) to Jamie Gold

See you on the felt,