1982 SBOP: A Win For the Longshot Doc

1982 SBOP: A Win For the Longshot Doc

Doc Stevens was described in Gamling Times Magazine as “…a 41-year old bachelor…a practicing eye,ear, nose and throat specialist in Las Vegas.” He was rated a 25-1 long shot going into the tournament., putting him 34th of the 39 entrants. In the end though, the prognostications didn’t matter. It was all about the results.

Steven’s opponent in the final was Tony Salinas. The two entered heads-up play with nearly identical stacks, but as the clock hit 6PM, four hours after the third day’s play began. Stevens took down a monster pot. With a flop of 7d-3c-Qd, they got the money all-in with Stevens holding a queen to Salinas’ flush draw. The fifth diamond never came, giving Stevens a T320,000 pot and leaving Salinas with T70,000 chips.

The two circled one another for the next hour until Stevens finally found a hand worth making his move on. He moved all-in on the strength of 8d-8c; Doc called with As-10c. When the flop came 9d-Js-10s, Stevens took the lead to Tony’s open-ended straight draw, but again, the needed cards didn’t come; 6h on the turn and 2h on the river gave Stevens the hand and the tournament.

All in all, the 1982 Super bowl had to be considered a success. 39 players set the tournament record for the main event, and other records were shattered in the preliminary events. If the event had one failing, it was that Slim had done such an outstanding job of promoting it that he’d lured the press out to cover it only to have his stars crap out early.

In truth, the Brunson’s, Baldwin’s, Reese’s and Ungar’s made the trip out more to support Slim and take advantage of the very fat cash games the event would obviously inspire than the event itself. The Super bowl hadn’t inspired the luster its World Series cousin had, and while the money was nice, it wasn’t extraordinary.

With the World Poker Tour making its way to Foxwoods this week, I’ll be taking a look at some past Foxwoods highlights in the day’s leading up to Saturday’s main event. Be sure to check out our coverage at www.worldpokertour.com and the resulting week of Hands of the Day right here at pokerlistings.com.

Gary Wise

gary@wisehandpoker.com

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