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Home > What's New > The Poker Game
The Poker Game
Posted: Tuesday, April 20, 2004
By David Savona 
Marvin R. Shanken and Kenneth Goldfarb shake hands following Goldfarb's winning the Cigar Aficionado Texas Hold'em poker tournament and $25,000 prize.
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Before the Big Smoke, Atlantic City, there was the big game: a $500 buy-in, no-limit Texas Hold'em card game. The top five would return that night, after the Big Smoke, to fight for the top prize of $25,000.
It was a cigar-friendly affair, held in a small, downstairs room in the Borgata hotel. It started with 100 players, each of whom began with $2,000 in chips. (Being a tournament, the chips could not be cashed in. The only way to get money was to finish in the top five.) They duked it out, each hoping to make it to the final table.
The room was fairly quiet, save for the click of chips being thrown into the pot, until about a half-hour in, when applause started at one end of the room and moved across. The first man was out, having unsuccessfully gone all-in.
Texas Hold'em is a card game in which each player is dealt two cards, face down, known as the hole cards. There's a bet, and then three cards are turned up in the center of the table -- this is known as the flop. There's another bet, another up card in the center, called the turn, another bet, followed by the last card, called the river, and the final bet.
Players ante up early in the tournament vying for a seat in the finals.
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The cards in the center are community cards, which everyone can use to make his best five-card hand. At any time a person can go "all in," putting all his chips in on one bet. If you lose, you go home.
The players began to fall quickly, and empty chairs began to appear at the tables. They were soon filled as the tables were consolidated, and hoots and hollers were mixed in as people won big, and lost big. (To read how this reporter fared, click here.)
After a few hours, the combatants had been whittled down to five. They would return after the conclusion of the Big Smoke to fight for the title.
At 10:30, five men sat down at a table at the far end of the private room. Norman Whitley of Wilmington, Delaware, had the fewest chips, $15,000. Kenneth Goldfarb of Marlton, New Jersey, had a few more, $18,500, followed by Chris Becker, the owner of Staten Island Sports Cards and Cigars, who had a stack of $25,500. Jimmy Mitchell, an Atlantic City local, had $47,000, and Gary Schwartz of Massapequa, New York, was the chip leader with $66,500.
Tournament finalist take their seats at the last table and are dealt their cards.
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Within two hands, the first man was out: Whitley, who began with the short stack. It didn't take much longer for the night's big upset: Mitchell, who started at the final table with the second-largest pile of chips, went all-in and quickly lost, finishing fourth.
Several hands were dealt in silence, and chips moved back and forth. Becker, a lit cigar clamped in his jaws, went all-in holding a queen-six. He was called by Schwartz and lost, ending his night. He finished third.
It was down to Schwartz and Goldfarb, whose once-small pot seemed to build all night. By now the room was half full with spectators gathered around the final table, straining for a view of the action. After several rounds, it came down to an all-in. Goldfarb flipped over his pair of tens -- enough to win. He walked away with the grand prize of $25,000.
Goldbarb, a retiree, said he played poker a couple of times a week.
"I typically don't play Hold'em," he said, admitting a preference for stud poker.
From the way he played, it sounded like a bluff.
Photos by Lauren Fleishman
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