Recently in Greg Raymer Category

There is a phenomenon in poker that few people get to experience. While everyone at a tournament table wears a target, those big name pros who have spent hours on television are painted with the biggest bullseye you'll ever see. It doesn't matter what big name pro you talk to, the situation rarely varies. When people come in this room, they are looking for a story to tell. They want to be able to say they busted a big name.

Greg Raymer is no stranger to this phenomenon. Since his $5 million win in the 2004 World Seres Main Event, players around the world have settled their scopes on the FossilMan. Sometimes, it works to his advantage. The following year in the World Series, Raymer had a banner year and threatened a repeat appearance at the final table of the main event. Sometimes, though, it works against him. This World Series was one of those times.

Raymer had one of the most frustrating World Series of his poker career. Out of more than 20 tournaments this summer, he cashed in one. The main event was Raymer's chance to come back, his chance to shake off the bullseye and recover for the year. Before the end of Level 2 today Raymer's opportunity disappeared.

From a distance, it looked almost peaceful. The crowd gave an appreciative clap and recognized the world champion's departure. Raymer stood and put his trademark duffel bag over his shoulder. He walked around the rail and toward the back door. The omnipresent ESPN cameras followed behind. It was only as Raymer drew closer to this reporter's desk that it was clear the FossilMan was done letting the bad beats roll off his shoulders. He had had enough.

The resulting conversation is neither for print--or despite the presence of the TV cameras--for broadcast. Suffice it to say, Raymer found his nemesis at the table today. "He sucked out on me three times," Raymer said. The final time, the guy ended up having an overpair to Raymer's top pair. Raymer, usually a cool customer, was decidedly ready to blow off some steam.

It was an illustration of a reality few people recognize. Even some of the top players in the game can have terrible years. Tens of thousands of dollars can be invested without any significant return. As this room filled up with 1,158 people today, it was clear that for many of them this would be the only big tournament they'll play this year, and maybe in their lifetime. To win this thing...to even make Day 2...takes the confluence of superior skill, good timing, and no small amount of good fortune. The latter did not grace Raymer's cards this year.

It was the same kind of day for Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu Set over set sent him out in Level 1. He talks about his exit in the video blog below. Be sure to check out all of our video blogs at PokerStars.tv.

Watch WSOP 08: Daniel Busts on PokerStars.tv

I've never seen Greg Raymer turn green and start turning over cars. That said, I'd be careful to not make him angry. The guy rarely, if ever, tilts. In fact, the only time I've seen him really, really mad was when a heckler started making inappropriate comments about his family during the 2006 World Series. As with most everything in Raymer's life, his emotion was justified and quickly controlled.

Today, Raymer sits in the $50,000 HORSE event with as calm a demeanor as I've seen him. He was all smiles as he unwrapped his clam shell fossil from its bubble wrap and set it in front of his cards. That made it all the harder to believe Raymer knocked a guy unconscious in less than 30 seconds a few days ago.

See, Raymer's World Series has gone, in a word, poorly. Until he cashed in the 2-7 Triple Draw event, he had played more than twenty events with exactly zero in-the-money finishes. The ugliest of all his exits was getting all-in three ways in a PLO tournament in which he had both opponents drawing to exactly one out on a KTT flop (he held aces and they both had a king with no straight or flush draws). The king fell and Raymer went out...and on a little bit of tilt.

Raymer made a steamy exit from the event and walked immediately to a lounge where Roland de Wolfe was struggling with a game of Wii Boxing.

"Roland would knock his guy down, then get knocked down himself," Raymer said. It apparently took Roland some time to put his Wii opponent on the virtual canvas.

"I'm next," Raymer said.

Whether Raymer intended to have a go at Roland or the Wii was unclear. Regardless, neither would've wanted to mess with Raymer post-one-outer.

Roland took off to play some virtual golf and Raymer grabbed the controls. A few seconds and one very strong upper-cut later, Raymer stepped away from the Wii.

"I'm done," he said.

And just like that, his Wii opponent was unconcious and Raymer's anger was sated. Tilt gone, he took off and vowed to fight at the felt another day.

That day is today. He has since recorded his first cash of this year's Series and is looking to throw a few punches in the HORSE event today. After three hours of play, his stack hasn't moved much. This is a heavy-weight fight and is scheduled to last for five days. Any good fighter, even one practiced in the discipline of Wii, knows to save the big punches for late in the fight.

And so that is what Raymer is doing tonight.

Greg "Fossilman" Raymer isn't much for coffeehousing. We learned that back in 2004 when he didn't bite on Mike Matusow's cojone bait. With that understood, that doesn't mean Raymer sits quietly at the table. To the contrary, Raymer has a story for just about every occasion. He enjoys his time at the table and gets to know about everybody.

Early in the day, someone at the table asked about the order of the table-breaks. The tournament director advised, "You'll be here all day."

With that in mind, the players at Raymer's table have become rather friendly throughout the past seven hours. Many know each other's names. Now back from dinner, though, Raymer has taken an interest in the young man in the eight-seat. He inquired about his name. "I don't want to keep saying, 'hey, mister," he explained.

The guy didn't say much. He mumbled a bit about not wanting people to know his screen name.

Raymer, though he is well-known by his own screen name, prefers to call people by their real names. "I don't care what your screen name is," he said.

The young gentlemen stole a look at Sorel Mizzi and another online pro at the table. "Yeah, but he might know it. And he might know it." he said.

That is the new poker. In the old days, poker players were known by their face and the name their mama gave them. Now, they enjoy a bit of anonymity.

After a bit more prodding, the online player spoke up. "My real name is Max," he said.

These kinds of things are important, if only for the psychological aspect of the game. In just the past few hours, the man known only as Max has worked his way up from a starting stack to the biggest stack at Table de Raymer.

Just now, Raymer called across the table, "So, what did you have for dinner, Max? Did you eat with Sorel?"

No matter what he munched on for dinner, Max wasn't biting now. There isn't any way to turn off chat at a live table. He shook his head and stared at the table.

This much we know: His real name is Max and his real stack sits at 50,000.

If Max keeps it up at this pace, everybody is bound to know his name--nay, names--very soon.

Greg Raymer sat behind his lizard-eye shades and beneath a hat more suited for the Caribbean than Monte Carlo Bay. His face was as still as the trademark fossil in front of him. He'd come in for a raise from late position, but now was facing a re-raise from the small blind. Nothing at the table moved, save the lady in the one-seat. An ever-so-slight shift in her seat forced one red 500 chip to fall off the top of her stack.

"Bad luck for me," Raymer said, sliding his cards into the muck. "You knocked that chip over."

The lady began to apologize before realizing Raymer's joke. Anyone who knows FossilMan knows that his decisions are never based on superstition. A mirror could break on Friday the 13th while a black cat walks under a ladder and over Raymer's hole cards. If he was going to call before, he was going to call after. Raymer confirmed it when he looked over at the small blind and said, "If you had aces, you should've pushed in. Then, I could've called." In short, it's poker, not luck.

Raymer is having a good day here at the PokerStars EPT Grand Final. Early in the day, he managed to send an opponent to the rail after cracking aces with 36 on a x6767 board. His opponent couldn't find a fold on the river and Raymer's stack towered over his fossil.

The fossil, though...that was a curious thing. Longtime Raymer fans know the fossil that sits on front of the FossilMan while he plays. It's black, oblong, and shiny. It's a constant companion to a man who doesn't base his game on supersition. That's what made it so odd. Today, Raymer plays without that trademark card capper. Something else, more round than oblong, and more sand-colored than black sits on top of Raymer's holdings.

When asked about it, Raymer shrugs it off. He's just come from a Rock and Mineral show and picked up a new fossil. This one?

"A 180 million year-old clam," Raymer says with evident pride.

It's more evidence Raymer doesn't need a good luck charm. He could have a monkey sitting on his cards and play them the same way. That's why his stack is rising as fast as the steam off his opponent's heads. As for the clam, Raymer says, "You're going to have to steam it a while to get it to open up."

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