Another round-up from the World Series of Poker including a win in the Monster Stack for Tommy Nguyen and first-time bracelet wins for Ryan Leng and Diogo Veiga.
I don’t know what I would do without PokerNews feeding me information from the World Series of Poker (WSOP). I guess I would have to be there. There was a time when I believed I would be there every year, even when I developed club foot.
I thought the same about Burning Man.
Then I had a kid.
Everything changed.
There is brown sticky stuff in the bottom of my latte. I don’t want to ask Ryan to explain what it is. I’m worried it’s some form of sugar, and I won’t be able to drink it again.
It’s bugging me.
Many things have bugged me this week.
I am a very buggable guy.
My wife sent passport documentation to the US embassy for our daughter. They sent a letter back telling my wife to complete another form because she hadn’t signed it.
It’s 2018.
How about a phone call to her asking a few security questions so they can move the process along?
This morning, I’m in the car, driving, wife in the back, jabbering away at the mobile phone company. The deets are in my name. The phone lady is on speaker. She needs to speak to me. I give her permission to talk to my wife about it.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not, we are in the same car.”
“It’s company policy.”
I loathe rules for rule’s sake and policy for policy sake.
Like this.
Tommy Nguyen wins Event #48: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Monster Stack, defeating 6,260 entrants over four days to become the ninth millionaire of the summer.
PokerNews writes:
“Nguyen won over $100,000 at a major poker tournament in Canada just two months ago and has used the money to enter events at the WSOP this year.”
“Major poker tournament?”
That’s like covering Portugal’s exit from the World Cup and writing, “They won a major footballing tournament two years ago in France.”
It bugs me.
Like everything else in the world.
The not to be muttered event was the partypoker MILLIONS North American Main Event where Nguyen finished sixth for $167,918. That event had 1,954 entrants. Nguyen is becoming quite apt at wading through large fields.
The 28-year-old Canadian was making an appearance at the WSOP for the first time.
He’s a confident lad.
“I never doubted that I was going to win,” Nguyen told PokerNews after his first-time victory.
Other than that MILLIONS final table appearance there is nothing but tumbleweed on his Hendon Mob resume.
It was a decent final table considering the vastness of the field. Frank Rusnak is no stranger to large fields finishing 4/7190 in the 2016 Millionaire Maker. Daniel Corbett won the Grosvenor United Kingdom Poker Tour (GUKPT) Main Event in Blackpool last year for $114,600. And Shyam Srinivasan is one of the best online MTT crushers in the world with $9.5m in online earnings playing as g’s zee on Stars and s_dot111 everywhere else.
Heads-Up
None of those previously discussed made it to the final punch-up. That came down to James Carroll and Nguyen. It was the second time Carroll had played heads-up for a million. In 2014 he beat Dylan Wilkerson in the final stage of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Bay 101 Shooting Stars event. He won $1.2m.
Nguyen began with a 51.8m v 42.1m heads-up lead after his deuces dodged a ton of outs against the K7cc of Rusnak, and Carroll made a fist of things doubling once with AT>KQ, but Nguyen was dominant after that. The final hand was AK>K2, the ninth all-in for AK at the final table.
Nguyen dropped a course in accounting to take a punt at a poker future. He may need to restart it so he can figure out what to do with all of his money.
Final Table Results
1. Tommy Nguyen – $1,037,451
2. James Carroll – $640,916
3. Francis Rusnam – $475,212
4. Chris Chong – $354,903
5. Daniel Corbett – $266,987
6. Michael Benko – $202,327
7. Shyam Srinivasan – $154,463
8. Harald Sammer – $118,802
9. Rittie Chuaprasert – $92,061
The event handed money to 939 stars including multiple bracelet winner Steve Billirakis (11th), PokerStars Ambassador Aditya Agarwal (27th), and former European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event winner Vladimir Geshkenbein (34th).
Ryan Leng Wins Event #51: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Bounty
When you are fortunate enough to be coached by Nick Petrangelo, Chance Kornuth and Joe McKeehen, it’s a matter of ‘when’ you win a bracelet and not ‘if.’
Ryan Leng, a coach at Chip Leader Coaching, defeated a field of 1,983 entrants to win Event #51: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Bounty. Last year, Leng finished 41st in the Main Event and was runner-up to Chris Frank in a 1,698 entrant $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event.
It seemed like a successful year.
I bet he wanted to cover his body with man-eating fleas.
Three interesting faces turned up at the final table. The 2013 WSOP ME, runner-up, Jay Farber made his second deep run of the festival, after finishing 3/1330 in Eric Baldwin’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em win. Russell Rosenblum peeled back the years with a final table appearance 16-years after finishing sixth in the 2002 WSOP Main Event the year Robert Varkonyi won it. And Mikhail Semin finished 7/7190 in the same Millionaire Maker Final Table that Frank Rusnak competed in (see my first yarn above).
Heads-Up
The heads-up tussle was between Leng and Ranno Scootla. Leng began with a 2:1 chip lead, but Scootla doubled to take the advantage when his 33 held up against AK.
Then Leng turned on the style and took a big lead.
Sootla pulled it back.
And then a cooler, after the pair got it in on 9d8c6c with Sootla holding top set, and Leng flopping a straight.
“Sootla is one of the toughest players I’ve ever played against; he’s so good. So, it was just a lot of fun to have to go through someone that good to get my first bracelet.” Leng told PokerNews.
It was Sootla’s first live cash.
And the bracelet.
That goes to Leng’s mum.
“She gets all of my trophies.”
After a quick winner’s photo, Leng jumped straight into the $5k and finished 67/621.
Final Table Results
1. Richard Leng – $272,765
2. Ranno Sootla – $168,464
3. Jay Farber – $121,932
4. Christian Nolte – $89,151
5. Javier Gomez – $65,851
6. Russell Rosenblum – $49,146
7. John Gulino – $37,063
8. Mark Mazza – $28,247
9. Mikhail Semin – $21,759
298 people earned a few bucks towards their dream of owning a diamond-encrusted watch including bracelet winner Justin Liberto (23rd), Russian grandmaster Konstantin Puchkov (24th) and the multiple WPT Main Event winner Marvin Rettenmaier (25th).
Diogo Veiga Wins Event #54: Big Blind Antes $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em
Portugal is in mourning.
The national team who won a major footballing tournament two years ago in France were booted out of the World Cup by Edison Cavani, but don’t fret, Diogo Veiga returns national pride with a first WSOP bracelet win for the country stitched to the side of Spain.
In April, Veiga finished sixth in the partypoker MILLIONS Grand Final in Barcelona for €450,000, so to say he is in fine fettle is putting it mildly. The lad is in shit hot form.
Event #54: Big Blind Antes $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em attracted 1,020 entrants, and they conspired to create a gem of a final table. Jonathan Abdellatif is a very experienced poker player winning side events at MILLIONS and WPT events as well as making the final table of a PokerStars Championship in Panama.
Tom McCormick has cashed 77 times in bracelet events without ever winning one. It’s a good job the Rio kitchen doesn’t use gas hobs after the Shamrock Kid exited in fifth. David Yan has earned close to $4m in live tournaments, including winning a WSOP gold ring, a side event at the Aussie Millions and a $25k High Roller at European Poker Tour Monte Carlo. And Cathal Shine finished runner-up to David Peters in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em back in 2016.
But it was the brick wall of Barry Hutter that stood in the way of a first-time bracelet win for Veiga. Hutter had won more than $4.5m in live tournament earnings including a bracelet back in 2015, and he began the heads-up encounter with a 9.2m v 6.1m chip lead after eliminating Radoslav Stoyanov in third.
Veiga doubled with the nut straight versus missed flush and straight draws to take the lead from Hutter, and he never once lost it, ending things somewhat fortuitously when his KT hit a king on the flop when all-in versus AT.
Final Table Results
1. Diogo Veiga – $522,715
2. Barry Hutter – $323,019
3. Radoslav Stoyanov – $$228,241
4. Jonathan Abdellatif – $$163,404
5. Tom McCormick – $118,552
6. David Yan – $87,179
7. Anna Antimony – $64,991
8. Cathal Shine – $49,126
9. Todd Ivens – $37,660
153 people earned more than a dirty toothpick including the multiple bracelet winner Kristen Bicknell (11th), super grinder Jeff Hakim (33rd), and former EPT Main Event Champion Frederik Jensen (35th).
