A Poker Maverick Hits the Jackpot

As Ms Verberne steps off the plane and into the sweltering heat of the Mojave Desert mid-way through next month, she will carry with her the hopes and prayers of about 50 other Tamarindo Poker players.

And in some cases an equal amount of envy and regret liberally sprinkled with the gnashing of teeth and the odd expletive.

For last weekend Ms Verbene, resident of Tamarindo via the Dutch port of Rotterdam, swept all before her in a six-and-a-half-hour, $25,000 poker tournament, seeing off six men and just one other woman.

The money was not real — just chips with a dollar face value — but her first prize is very tangible. Two thousand dollars for an airfare, accommodation and an occasional meal, plus, the $10,000 registration fee for the 2006 World Series of Poker, hosted every year by Harrah’s Casino.

“I am very excited about this,” said Ms Verberne, afte r the final cards had been stacked and the chips counted. “I have never been to Las Vegas before, never.”

It is not just that Ms Verberne beat out some of the town’s top players, but that she has only been playing the brand of poker known as Texas Hold ‘Em, for about 12 months.

“When I was younger I played a bit of five-card stud, but last year I was at the Hotel Pasatiempo having dinner, when I saw them playing Texas Hold ‘Em,” she recalls.
That’s when her road to the gambling capital of the World began.

“I am used to playing with five blind cards,” she says. “It’s pure intuition, so for me this is a lot easier.

“It’s the whole psychology of the game and the other players, and also how you play with the cards. I know when I have a winning hand.”

Texas Hold ‘Em is a popular form of poker where players are dealt two cards down and five so-called “community” cards, after which they have to make the best combination of the seven. Players paid $130 each to enter the ten qualifying rounds.

Henrik Bodholdt, who put the Tamarindo Poker Tournament together, and who took one of the final eight seats at the table, was as surprised as anyone by Ms Verberne’s win.

“I think the biggest surprise was not so much that Linda won, but that Junior went out as quickly as he did,” he said, referring to Jim Reilly Jr, who went into the competition a 12-5 favorite, but was eliminated after just two hours of play.

Mr Reilly, a regular player within the Tamarindo competition, had actually won two of the ten qualifying rounds, giving him $5000 in chips, or twice that of other players. Ben Zeigler, with a reported 12-1 chance of taking the table had also won two qualifying rounds, keeping the final table to just eight players.

“Taking a double stack has real advantages because you can bet bigger, and you can also afford to sit back and take your time,” explains Mrs Bodholdt.

Runner-up, playing with just a single stack of $2500, was Mike Alto. Mr Alto who originally hails from Texas, has been playing poker since he was just eight years old, partly the result of hanging around with his grandfather, the legendary Jesse Alto who went five times to the World Series Poker Tournament.

And Ms Verberne’s strategy going up against the men?

“To do it easily,” she says. “I did not want to chase the wins, I just wanted to let them come to me. I know how the men play, how they play their cards. For me a lot of it was an open book.”

And the World Series of Poker?

“I think I have a good chance because I know how to play, and if I have a little faith in my abilities, I think I could do well.”

That would work well for the mother of a ten-year-old daughter. Last year, for example, Joseph Hachem, a Lebanese-born Australian, beat 5618 players to take the World Series. And a record $7.5 million dollar pot.

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