Writer James McManus Defies the Odds
as an Everyday Poker Player
This past week I scheduled
my usual TiVo fix of poker programs for the week and
noticed a program called Prince of Poker airing
on The History Channel. Deciding to stray from my usual
World Series of Poker reruns and WPT airings, I decided
to record the program. The show ended up featuring an
interesting poker story that I wasn't familiar with -
that of writer James McManus at the 2000 World Series of
Poker Main Event. Interspersed with accounts from the
actual figures, the show recreated the poker play with
low-budget sets and actors that looked nothing like the
actual players... take a watch if you happen to catch a
rerun.
Anyway, let me give you a
brief retelling of Jim's story. In early 2000, he was a
freelance writer struggling to meet the demands of his
household. His marriage was otherwise dissolving, he was
having difficulty finding paid writing projects, and
needless to say money was tight. Fortunately,
Harper's magazine hired him on for a piece on
high-stakes gambling (the game of Bridge was suggested)
and fronted him a $4,000 advance. In the world of
freelance writing, that's a very respectable payment for
a magazine article. The $4,000 would go a long way in
terms of household bills and other obligations.
Instead of settling on
mundane card games, McManus got the idea of covering the
year's World Series of Poker - the biggest event in
poker. However, just covering the event didn't cut it
for him - he wanted to play in it himself. Of course,
the buy-in itself would wipe out his cash advance, but
he felt that an inexperienced amateur just trying to get
an insider's view into the Holy Grail of poker
tournaments seemed like a great idea for a creative
article. While his wife initially protested, she ended
up supporting his decision. For the next few months
leading up to the WSOP, McManus obsessively learned No
Limit Texas Hold'em mostly through T.J. Cloutier's book
Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold'em and
Wilson's tournament software.
Finally, it was time for Jim
to make the trip to Las Vegas and test his newfound
skills at No-Limit Hold'em in the biggest poker
tournament in the world. Unfortunately, that $4,000
wouldn't even get him registered as the buy-in for the
Main Event is $10,000. The only option left was to
compete at one of the $1,000 one-table satellites
offered at The Horseshoe in the days leading up
to the tournament. In his first taste of tournament
poker, McManus won the satellite and his Main Event
buy-in, knocking out poker professional Hasan Habib (I
believe) in second place. He was in...
Entering the Main
Event is one thing and competing in it is
another. In 2000, the Main Event attracted over 500
players. After finding himself crippled early in Day 1,
McManus made a great comeback and managed to not only
survive the first day but become the chip leader at one
point in the tournament. A key hand came up against his
poker hero and indirect mentor T.J. Cloutier in which he
succeeded in calling down the pro's bluffs and winning a
monster pot. Cloutier was interviewed for the show and
he called it "a fantastic call". McManus ended up making
the final table before exiting in fifth place for a
$250,000 payday. In hindsight, it was an excellent
parlay of $1,000 and travel expenses for an amateur
writer.
Three years before Chris
Moneymaker made headlines by winning over $2.5 million
at the 2003 Championship, James McManus was really the
first complete amateur to advance that far into the Main
Event and shock the poker world. He has since written a
full book about the account, titled Positively Fifth
Street. As I said, I enjoyed the program on The
History Channel, but I still couldn't figure out why it
was called Prince of Poker. Also, I had a laugh at the
overacting by the bad T.J. cloutier extra. Just listen
to the conviction of, "I raise... $200,000,"
which, of course, would never happen at a real poker
table. Also, I got a kick out of one scene in which a
supposed poker fan runs into Cloutier at The
Horseshoe and tells him about how he loved him on
the World Poker Tour. Of course, this was supposed to
take place in 2000 and the World Poker Tour didn't debut
until 2002. Of course, the point is that this is one of
those feel-good poker history stories, one that you may
have overlooked.
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