Day 2 breaks record for shortest final 10 I have ever seen...

Everyone is busy counting their chips and verifying their amounts. We have three with sunglasses and the rest just dancing eyes. The day started with 847 players in the $300 event with the prize pool holding a grand total of $246,477. This tournament will pay the first place winner over $60,000. The blinds start today with 4000/8000 and a 1000 chip ante. The gents have 14 minutes left in this round and the cards are in play.

Gene Grimaldi made it into the first hand and is the first to depart. He started as the short stack of 17K and decided the K 7 off was the hand to play. This was Gene’s first final table in a live tournament. He is a New Orleans native. Gene finishes 10th today and takes $2,710 to the house with him.

Almost immediately, Sean McCabe from Sunny Isles Beach, Florida pushed all in with the Ks Jd. He was called by Jose Jimenez who held the Ad Js. The Ace accommodated Jose on the flop and teased Sean with a Q as well. The T never materialized and Sean took a 9th for $4,930. Sean’s future plans include shooting for the stars and that would be to play in the main events of both the WPT and the WSOP.

The next player (and I AM having trouble typing this fast!) to bite the dust is Nick Graphia from Baton Rouge. Nick is a 54-year-old Private Investigator and plays poker for entertainment and recreation. Nick ran into a lesser hand that pulled a pair and gave him 8th today for $7395. He had Ks Js and Darrell Hardin had a suited 8 J. The board fell in Darrell’s favor catching an 8 on the flop and took the pot.

Now, 30 minutes into this gig, we just lost Ricky Klibert from LaPlace, Louisiana. He tried to give ole “big slick” a go and Jose Jimenez popped him with his made hand of 99. The flop was uneventful with 6 8 5 and then turned really rotten for Ricky when a 9 hit the turn and turned his day into a 7th place finish for $9860. Ricky is in the information technology profession and says making it to the final table today is his first major poker accomplishment. He has been playing for two years and is anxious to play in more tourneys in the future.

Mario Orozco tangled with Dewey Morris and wishes he hadn’t. Mario had 99 and Dewey KK and the board was bad news for Mario. The KK held up and sent Mario packing with 6th place and $12,375. Mario is a professional poker player at age 34. He boasts of 30 cashes last year, and I don’t blame him at all. For only playing 5 years, he is doing really well.

I am having issue with these guys going out so quickly. Don’t they see I am trying to record this??? Jeepers, here goes another one. Todd Sensor went after it with an Ac 7d and ran smack dab into Jose with the K K. All of these hands are preflop guys. No one is waiting to see what the flop brings to them. There is a really really aggressive bunch of guys. This was Todd’s first tournament and looks forward to more. He is from my home State of Texas. He lives close by too in San Antonio. Todd made $14,790 and took down a 5th out of 847 for his first go at it. Congrats Todd!


OK. We just hit the one hour mark and we are down to 4 players. All I can say is Wowie!!! Double that wowie because the 4th place finisher just went to collect his $17,255. Darrell Hardin just scooted out the door after losing with the mighty Kd 3s versus As Qd held by the chip leader, Ron Medlin. By the time we made it to the river, Darrell had 3 outs to keep breathing (by the way, we just lost 3rd place). The board was T J 7 A 6 in the end.

OK…now Dewey “done did it”. He held the button and tried to make a blind steal and ran into a messy bunch of trouble. Jose had a pocket pair of sixes and as the day has been going, the board did not comply with standard suck out procedures. Dewey is pretty happy with his 3rd place win and the $19,720 that goes with it. He is a retired businessman from Nashville. After playing only 5 events he has made the final table two times. Poker is a relatively new game for him as he has been active in golf and backgammon tournaments for over twenty-five years.

During my mach speed typing attempt, the remaining two players, Ron Medlin and Jose Jimenez got all in preflop (original idear!) Ron had Kd Th while Jose had Kc Qc. The flop came 3 4 3 A 3 and Jose was congratulated as the winner for about 4 seconds until the professional (the dealer) pointed out that they each had 3 3 3 A K for a tie. Since John Grooms (game announcer) gave the table and the audience the ole “pump fake oops”, Ron took a huge deep breath as that was a $31,000 three for him.

Ron followed that hand by creating major damage to his stack. He raised preflop to 30K and Jose called. The Q 4 2 fell on the flop (amazingly we had a flop). Jose bet 50K and Ron raised to 100K. Jose then declared all in causing Ron to muck his cards. At this point Ron has 150,000 in chips and Jose 690,000. The next hand was a corker. Jose limps in. The flop is a 9d Qd 7s. As it has been, both players get all their chips in the middle. Show and tell time. Ron shows the 9h 2s; Jose the 7d 2d. I’m honestly in awe. The turn is a 2 and the river a 6 and Ron doubles up. The dealer could no sooner get the cards in the air before they were both all in again. Ron bet 50K, Jose all in and Ron comin’ in right behind him. This one gave us the winner. Ron shows an ace and a race ( A 7) and Jose the mighty K K, which incidentally held up this entire day. Again the board was very uneventful and the game was over. Jose takes 1st with $66,765 and Ron 2nd and $34, 798. Ron came to the table as the chippie today. He is a 27 year old day trader and took up the game only 10 months ago. He plays online primarily.


Jose is 28 and resides in Dublin, Ohio. His family lives in Sonora, Mexico. In February he was making a trip back from visiting his wife in Mexico and decided to take in the $200 WSOP event in Rincon. He took 4th and $9860 that day. Well, sure enough, he is on his way back to Ohio again from Mexico and decided to try it again. Viola! He takes first, the moola and the WSOP Circuit ring. Jose is a waiter in Dublin and wants to take this money and start his own restaurant. Here’s to the good life Jose!



This event took only one hour and nineteen minutes to play. Sorry about the pictures as the Louisiana gaming commission has some issue with cameras. I did catch a few though.