We relive Chris Ferguson’s amazing, era-defining 2000 Main Event win and show how you can follow in his footsteps
Chris Ferguson takes off the cowboy hat and runs his hand through his hair, looking momentarily dazed. He leans back and, with the hat and sunglasses gone, we can see the pain etched on his face for the first time. This is the moment that will decide who wins the 2000 WSOP main event. It was a moment that changed poker forever.
Flash forward to the autumn of 2006 and once again the hat and sunglasses are off and Ferguson sits agonised over a decision. He calls and watches as the flop comes down, ending his dreams for another day as two months of poker winnings tumble into cyberspace. He leans back in his chair defeated.
By late 2006 Ferguson was six months into a challenge to turn $0 into $10,000 on Full Tilt Poker. And he was starting to hate it. ‘There were times when I wanted to give up,’ he says, laughing now at the memory as he sits relaxing in a Cardiff hotel. ‘But when I set myself a goal I’m the sort of person who has to meet it.’
Ferguson had previously completed a challenge to turn $1 into $20,000 with relative ease, but the $10k challenge tested him in ways he hadn’t foreseen. ‘It was a lot tougher than I thought – considerably harder than the last one. I had to play these 900- player $40 freerolls. I forget how many I won, but in nine months I got $21 out of them.
‘I remember winning one and then spending three days thinking what to do with my $3. I decided to buy in for the minimum at the smallest no-limit hold’em cash game and five hands later I was out.’
In person Ferguson is rarely ruffled. He talks with a soft monotone, occasionally breaking into a gentle chuckle, and is a calm, unassuming presence. But as he recollects grinding away in those freerolls a look of genuine pain crosses his face.
‘People were playing against me and they didn’t think I was trying to win. It may be $2 to you, but it was close to a month’s work for me. If people knew how hard I was fighting over these freerolls they would find it so funny.’
MOMENT OF TRUTH
Eventually Ferguson hit a breakthrough, finishing second in a $1 tournament, and began a nine-month cash-game grind. He reached the $10,000 mark in September 2007 and it was as if a weight had been lifted. It also seemed to mark a rebirth of his tournament career. In November 2007 he won his third WSOP circuit event, making him arguably the most successful WSOP player this century.
Nobody embodies the spirit of the WSOP more than Ferguson. Since his main event win in 2000 he’s won bracelets in stud, Omaha and hold’em as well as three WSOP circuit titles. He’s also a class act, playing the game with a rare discipline and good grace.
So it’s gratifying that after two years of sitting out most of the major US tournaments, Chris Ferguson is ready to play big-time poker again. His long legal battle with the WPT over image rights has ended, and his favourite time of the year – the WSOP – is here.
Ferguson still has the hunger he had eight years ago when he shocked the world to take the title, presaging the internet revolution that was to follow. And as he starts to reveal what it takes to be a WSOP champion, those stories from 2000 sound as fresh as ever…
1994-1999
The Early Days
Chris Ferguson’s love affair with the WSOP began well over a decade ago in the early nineties, when he was still a PhD student at UCLA in California. He would spend his time playing on the IRC network, honing his no-limit hold’em skills and waiting for those few weeks in May.
CF: I would look at the schedule and choose two weeks when I could go. I would choose a week where I could play some no-limit events, some razz and lowball. Those were the events I wanted to play in. Then every evening I would go and play the super satellites. Back then I loved the satellite system. They were super soft.
The players really didn’t know how to play at all. They were horrible. No- limit hold’em cash games were never spread in a casino, and if you wanted to play no-limit hold’em you had to play a tournament. After 1995 when tournaments really started to take off people got a lot better.
As a predominately online player, Ferguson was under no illusions about the strength of his live game. This was the old-school WSOP where only a few eager amateurs would find their way through the satellites and the majority of the field were live poker veterans.
CF: I was very worried about people picking up tells on me, as I hadn’t played much high stakes. Everybody has tells. Even the best players in the world have tells. And you’d better know your own tells. Of all the people in the world, your own tells are the ones you need to know the most. That’s going to help you the most, because you are going to learn to hide them. I developed this routine of staring at the centre of the pot so they wouldn’t know where my eyes were looking. A couple of years later I started putting the hands under the chin because it was more comfortable.
2000 WSOP>>>>>>
The First Day
By the time of the 2000 WSOP, in those days held at Binion’s Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas, Ferguson was no longer the self-conscious amateur. He had notched up a string of cashes in big tournaments, and was already the holder of a WSOP bracelet (the $2,500 seven-card stud event). But looking back he admits he was far from the finished article.
CF: I definitely hadn’t honed my skills in 2000. I am a much better player now. I was really aggressive back then and that was the style that worked back in those days. Now when you are playing against other hyper-aggressive players I don’t think it works as well, but even today if I am the first one in the pot I will never call – I will either raise or fold.
I haven’t called a bet in the WSOP except in very specific situations in years. Certainly when I won my bracelet I never called a bet before the flop. If people limped in I would either raise or fold. If people raised I would either re-raise or fold. The only time I would ever call was from the blinds. But if someone raised from the small blind I would either re-raise or fold.
Some people like to do things like call with pocket twos and hope to flop a set. I don’t like that strategy. In early position I will just toss it, while in middle or late position I am going to raise with it. I will never just call. If you limp in with pocket deuces you have to limp in with some strong hands too. Now you are giving away a lot, because the big blind can flop two pair on you and you could lose a lot of chips with your big hands.
Despite this aggressive pre-flop approach, Ferguson is regarded as one of the tightest players on the circuit. In a more innocent age of no-limit tournament strategy, he was seen as a super-aggressive player, but times change. Ferguson hasn’t really though. It’s just that the rest of the world has caught up.
CF: I have a reputation as being tight among other professionals, but I just think it is the right way to play – especially against the top players. I see a lot of the other professionals getting out of line, and sometimes against amateurs you can do that and get away with it. I’m happy for them to play like that against me – they are not going to run over me.
But in general I am not one who feels I have to go out and accumulate a lot of chips. I’m trying to avoid risks to a certain extent. When I have a super-deep stack I am trying to avoid situations where I am going to lose a lot of chips. I want to avoid situations where I can lose a ton if he has a better hand.
The Second Day
Playing a tight-aggressive strategy worked for Ferguson in 2000. He found himself at the end of day one with an above-average stack of 30,300. With a solid foundation, Ferguson upped the aggression just at a point where people were starting to dream of the money. It’s a strategy he recommends to any less experienced player looking to take on the main event field.
CF: I think players tended to play too passively and would fold too much to raises. Back then my strategy was to put pressure on those types of players. For a fairly inexperienced player that’s still probably a good idea. I’m not saying it’s how I would play, but if you think you are outclassed a little bit you definitely want to take the more aggressive approach.
You hear people like Phil Hellmuth saying they don’t want to take risks in tournaments. But if you take the super- aggressive style you may not be as good a poker player as they are, yet you might outplay them. They may decide they don’t want to do a coin-flip and throw their hand away.
Eventually they will pick up a hand, but then you have two shots. You might have a better hand (unlikely) or you can suck out on them. And even if they win they are probably only winning the money you already stole from them.
Ferguson’s approach to mid-stage tournament play, however, is different. And it also differs from a lot of top players. He continues to play the game one hand at a time, not setting targets or objectives. He focuses on the cards, the players and that moment in time. Just as he did back in 2000.
CF: When the antes come in you have to play a few more hands. You have to loosen up a bit. In first position I will play 10-15% of my hands. If it’s folded around to me in second position I will play 16-18% of my hands and so on. But I don’t have any objectives in mind like stealing once per orbit. Just play the hand. Don’t worry about the past or the future, just play this one hand as well as you possibly can and most of the time that means fold.
Some people try to get too tricky and think they have to steal once per orbit. I let it take care of itself. I want to have as many chips as I possibly can, but I want to be in the tournament.
The Third Day
Ferguson finished day two with a huge 183,500, putting him ninth in chips and in the money with just 45 of 512 players remaining. He maintained his aggressive approach, and continued to find big hands at the right times. Before long he found himself down to the last ten, the point where the adrenaline really begins to surge. For Ferguson this meant sticking with the careful disciplined play that got him this far.
CF: You really want to avoid the coin-flip at that stage. There is so much money to be made climbing up the places. I’m even avoiding a 55/45. With ten players left you really want to move up the ladder at that point.
Jeff Shulman held a massive chip lead at this stage with 2 million of the 5.1m chips in play. Ferguson was still focused on playing one hand at a time though, and when Shulman made a standard button raise and he looked down at a pair of sixes he knew what his move had to be. However, he had no idea how significant this hand would prove to be.
CF: He was raising a lot and I hadn’t really been playing back at him, so I saw sixes and thought I couldn’t really lay this one down. It’s at least 10/1 he has a higher pair so I moved all-in. He called, which he got a lot of criticism for, but if he is going to raise half the time there it is hard for him to fold pocket sevens.
Having said that, I don’t think he had to call. I don’t think it was a bad play though. I think I got pretty damn lucky. I can’t think I played good poker, because I got my money in dominated. But I stand by the raise. Even if I know he has pocket sevens, how often is he going to call?
What happened next changed the face of the game. A six arrived on the flop, handing a huge pot to Ferguson and dramatically shifting the momentum of the final table. Three hands later Ferguson picked up Aces, Jeff Shulman picked up Kings and Cloutier picked up Jacks. TJ managed to get off lightly, raising to 200k only to see Shulman push all-in and Ferguson call.
CF: I would have considered a call in TJ’s position. Only because he was getting such huge odds. He had already put 200k in and he is calling 250k to win 1.4 million. Even if he is dominated he is getting about the right odds. And it’s a monster mistake to fold if he isn’t dominated.
Ferguson’s Aces held up and play ended for the day. For the first time Ferguson began to feel the magnitude of what he was about to achieve.
CF: During the whole tournament I had been very calm, but when I finished that day with 2.5 million and my nearest competitor had 500,000 – that was when I started to get nervous.
The Final Table
The final six took their seats in front of the TV cameras and the action took just two hands to kick into gear, when Ferguson knocked out Roman Abinsay to extend his chip lead. It took less than an hour to get down to four players, and when Chris Ferguson dispatched Steve Kaufman in third to go into heads-up play against TJ Cloutier he had a huge chip lead and it looked like it would be over in two or three hands. Even back then Ferguson was a heads-up expert, having played countless hands on IRC poker.
CF: You need a lot of concentration in heads-up play, because you are always in the action. Sometimes players at a nine-handed table get bored and play too many hands. You are not going to get that in heads-up. You have to play more aggressively. If I have position I am playing about 80% of hands. If I’m in the big blind I will play 80% of my hands to a minimum raise, but I will fold a lot otherwise. Position is really valuable.
But Cloutier staged an impressive comeback, playing a trappy style against the relentlessly aggressive Ferguson. He managed to level the chipstacks and Ferguson was visibly deflated. He admitted afterwards he was feeling outplayed and was looking for a spot to gamble. So when Cloutier re-reraised all-in following Ferguson’s 600,000 re-raise with A?-9?, Jesus was left with a tough decision. He held a narrow chip lead – did he want to gamble for the title? After several agonising minutes he made the call and Cloutier flipped over A-Q.
The board came 2-K-4-K, but then a red nine was peeled off and placed on the river. Chris Ferguson threw his hands up in the air and the online generation had its first winner – its first hero. It was a moment that changed the future of poker, and set the stage for the internet revolution that was to follow. All thanks to a slice of luck. Ferguson is sanguine looking back, and he’s the first to pay credit to the importance of luck in winning a poker tournament.
CF: Running good is really important in a huge tournament like the main event. I love these guys who win the WSOP and literally think they are the best player in the world. I guess it makes them happy, but unfortunately if they act on it and they are not right they are going to lose a lot of money.
I don’t think I will ever win the main event again. I’m confident in my ability, but I also have confidence in my ability to judge how hard it is to win the main event. Anyone can say they can win the main event, but not many can do it.
PokerPlayer magazine is the world’s best resource for in-depth interviews with the stars
