NY TIMES
In 1980 the tiny Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation successfully sued to regain land it had lost in the 17th century.
Eight years later, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which permitted casinos on Indian reservations. After several banks turned the Pequots down, Malaysian investors lent the tribe enough money to strikingly expand its bingo parlor in Ledyard, Conn. In February 1992, Foxwoods opened its doors as the first casino in New England and, not incidentally, the largest on earth.
Each of the 550 surviving descendants of the Mashantucket Pequot has by now become wealthy. The benefits package the tribe provides to 13,000 Foxwoods employees is one of the most generous in the casino industry. And they have also enhanced the lives of thousands of Native Americans with grants for housing and college tuition.
In 2003, Foxwoods became a charter member of the World Poker Tour. Except for the $25,500 championship at the Bellagio, its World Poker Finals is the most lucrative event on the tour. Touring pros also like it because it attracts the second-highest number of inexperienced players. (The World Series of Poker is the runaway leader in this category.)
One drawback is that some of these players don`t know some basic rules. Before folding, for example, they flash their hole cards to friends at the table. Any card shown to one player must be shown to everyone, of course, but when one guy last week was reminded of this, he shoved his cards into the muck and muttered threateningly, "You wanna see my hand, come over here and look at it."
Handling cards or chips improperly is a natural result of learning to play on the Internet, where computers perform these tasks for you. Most players new to live action make a good-faith effort to get up to speed, but some Foxwoods locals became downright hinky when asked to reveal their stacks. In no-limit hold`em, chip counts are of vital importance, so a kind of Freedom of Information Act applies: large-denomination chips must be kept in plain view, and any player may ask for an opponent`s count before deciding how much, or whether, to bet. In many situations, after all, it makes tactical sense to raise a $2,000 bet made by someone with $20,000 in chips but to fold against a player with $4,000 or $40,000 in front of him, since the likelihood of getting reraised depends on the relative counts.
Another problem is that since Mohegan Sun, Connecticut`s other casino, closed its poker room in 2003, Foxwoods has had the only one in New England. Few players think it`s a coincidence that its staff members have a decidedly less helpful attitude than their counterparts in Nevada or California, where poker rooms face healthy competition. Even so, this year a record 783 players either won their way into the main event on Nov. 13 or ponied up the $10,200 in cash.
For my part, a critical hand came about seven hours into Day 1, when I had increased my original stack to $13,400. Sitting in the late position with A-J, I called John Phan`s middle-position raise. Phan is ranked No. 1 in the world this year, and he likes to raise with at least half the hands he is dealt, so I didn`t give him credit for much; he also had less than $7,000 at this point. But if just about anyone else had raised, I would have mucked A-J in a Mashantucket heartbeat. When the flop came A-K-2, Phan bet about half the pot, and I was happy to call. The turn came a 5. Phan checked, I bet enough to put him all-in, assuming he had a weaker ace than mine or a straight draw. He called. I showed him A-J, and he showed me ... A-5. It was downhill for me after that.
The final-table action will be broadcast during Season 4 of the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel. In the meantime, let`s back up a few days. Between Oct. 29 and last Saturday, Foxwoods was host to 13 preliminary events, nearly every one of which attracted a record field, capped by a $500 no-limit hold `em event on Nov. 3 that drew 1,245 players. Two days earlier, a $500 Omaha high-low event drew 280, an impressive number given hold `em`s overwhelming popularity of late.
An hour and 20 minutes into this tournament, one player suddenly clutched his throat, gasping for air. Turning deep red, he toppled unconscious to the floor. Three doctors dropped their cards and rushed to his aid - a neurosurgeon, a pediatrician and a 72-year-old retired vascular surgeon from Thompson, Pa., by the name of Will Noyes. The patient was unresponsive and in cardiac arrest, so Dr. Noyes administered mouth-to-mouth cardiopulmonary resuscitation until, 10 minutes later, he felt a pulse returning. A team of emergency medical technicians then arrived with a defibrillator and removed the patient by ambulance to a hospital, where his recovery continued until he was sent home.
Dr. Noyes later told me that he has responded to quite a few similar emergencies, not surprising when you consider that he plays a lot of tournaments and each one puts hundreds of people into a room for long hours under considerable pressure, increasing the actuarial odds that someone will experience a health crisis. "When one of these situations presents itself," he told me, "I do what I have to do as a physician."
Confidentiality issues keep me from reporting many details, but I can say that after the technicians left with the patient, Dr. Noyes returned to his seat, accepted the kudos of his fellow players and, around 9:15 the next evening, won the Omaha tournament. And that on Nov. 11 he was inducted into the Seniors Hall of Fame.
