1987 World Series of Poker

Part I:


Part II:


Part III:


Part IV:


Part V:


The first tournament of the second stage of the WSOP. 1970-1986 were the early years. 1987-2002 were the formative years and since then is the explosion. 152 players entered but the coverage starts with only 6 left. Former Mets announcer Ted Robinson is the host. Of those 6 left, 3 are very well known players today, Dan Harrington, Howard Lederer and Johnnie Chan.
This is also the first televised tournament that really shows the hole cards on almost every hand.
Harrington gets knocked out in 6th place when his A-Q falls to A-6.
There's a lot of talk about Howard Lederer being the young gun in this tournament. He is only 23 and still a student at Columbia. Even he says he's surprised he's doing so well, his first time in the Main Event. The discussion is quite ironic in light of him being on the other side of the same topic now.
Lederer was probably about 300 pounds during this tournament, earning him the nickname "Bubba." To this day Phil Helmuth and Annie Duke still call him "Bub."
I'm not sure if it's the quality of the recording, or the years, but the voices of Lederer and Doyle Brunson sound much different than they do today.
Bub busts out with A-6 vs. 9-9.
At the beginning of the tournament Jack Binion introduced each player to the crowd by name. Imagine how long that would take if they tried to do that now.
Telly Savalas joins Gabe Kaplan as actors in the field. Lederer once explained that hand that knocked Telly out of this tournament. Flop is Jd-10d-blank. Someone goes all in with A-10 and Telly calls with Kd-Qd. The tens held up.
Puggy Pearson just talked about the young computer players. Damn, I wish he would have said internet.
Not only is Johnnie Chan the best player he has luck on his side too. He moves all in after the flop with top pair, top kicker. Bob Ciaffone is getting short stacked and calls with bottom pair. The turn give Ciaffone two pair and the lead, but Chan gets an ace on the river for a higher two pair and we're down to heads up, Chan vs Henderson.
Chan played really tight through the heads up match, folding a lot of hands, but he had such a big chip lead he was just trying to catch one big hand. He called an all-in with A-9 vs. pocket 4s. He caught a 9 on the river to win the tournament.