Full of Character

By Ram Vaswani, 23/02/2004

LA Poker Classic, Los Angeles
$10,000 No Limit Hold'em WPT Event
Report by Ram on Monday, 23 February 2004 at 11:17 pm

It was a great buzz playing in our first WPT event. Having all got off to a flying start on the first day, 3 of us remained going into day 2. Ross got himself into a great position early on and looked like our main hope which was the case as myself and Joe departed early on.

However, things turned for him later in the day and he ended up getting knocked out in about 40th place.

Anyway, one of the many things that I love about this world tour is meeting up with so many colourful characters. Here is a little something about four of the all time greats.

Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott

One of the funniest guys you will ever meet Dave constantly keeps everyone entertained with his barrage of jokes and insults, although mostly at the expense of others. As well as a brilliant poker player Dave has many other talents and can often be found playing the piano or guitar, or even picking up a mike and singing an Elvis tune in front of the whole poker room. Not the best loser in the world Dave does tell one too many bad beat stories but a bigger character you willl never find.

Phil Hellmuth

Probably the biggest face in poker.

Phil doesn't always do himself justice with some of his actions and comments, which is a shame because I think he really is a great and genunine guy. Phil's influence in the growth of the poker industry is second to none and he is without doubt one of the best players in the world.

Mick "the hoon" Stanton

Mick portrays a bit of gangster type character but is really a big softy at heart. He is a bit of a romantic and dedicates himself to matchmaking for all his poker playing friends. His hilarious stories always start with "I met this beautiful girl with two teeth and a walking stick". A lovable character and a legend down under.

"Mad" Marty Wilson

Whenever I bump into Marty on my worldly travels I prepare myself to five or six new stories to add to the thousands I have already heard. I sometimes wonder if it is possible for so many things to happen to one person in one lifetime. Anyone sitting on a table with Marty will soon realise where he gets his knickname from. It is always a pleasure to bump into one of the friendliest faces in poker, not to forget his lovely young lady Katherine.

We are now having a couple of days off before we get to play in the pro-celebrity event on Wednesday, the WPT Invitational. Being in Los Angeles we are look forward to meeting up with some big Hollywood stars and showing them what real work is all about.....

The above picture shows the start of day two with over 100 players left. Going into day three only 27 remain:

1 Antonio Estaudiari 337,200
2 Mel Wiener 275,000
3 Bill Gazes 240,900
4 Bill Baxter 240,700
5 Amir Vahedi 218,300
6 David Benyamine 195,600
7 Jeff Shulman 194,300
8 John Sacha 179,400
9 Young Phan 179,100
10 J.C. Tran 169,600
11 Casey Castle 159,800
12 Adam Schoenfeld 157,400
13 Johan Storakers 149,300
14 Paul Wolfe 147,100
15 Scott Lundberg 139,100
16 Michael Mahurin 133,900
17 Marvin Karlinas 103,500
18 Mike Keohen 88,300
19 Alan Goehring 81,100
20 Andrew Bloch 79,900
21 Dat Ly 69,700
22 Terry Myers 68,600
23 Jimmy Athanas 64,900
24 Quoc Al 'Vinnie' Vinh 55,800
25 Greg Mascio 47,000
26 Greg Geller 41,000
27 Steve Zolotow 4,400

Antonio Estaudiari (Chip Leader) Moving All-In