| FINAL TABLE
THE LAS VEGAS LINE: 7-2
Outside of Los Angeles, the rest of the world would probably agree that the best No Limit Hold’em poker players live in Las Vegas. That theory would be borne out by today’s Final Table as seven of the nine finalists are Las Vegas residents. Now comes the hard part, actually winning the event.
FINAL TABLE
Seat/Player/Hometown/Chip Count
Seat 1 Tomer Benvenisti Las Vegas NV 82,500
Seat 2 George Huber Las Vegas NV 28,500
Seat 3 Dan McGuire Las Vegas NV 44,000
Seat 4 Gary Friedlander Bellaire TX 50,500
Seat 5 Cuong Huyhn Bell Gardens CA 74,000
Seat 6 Tan Le Las Vegas NV 18,500
Seat 7 Billy Baxter Las Vegas NV 78,000
Seat 8 Huck Seed Las Vegas NV 154,000
Seat 9 Frank Cremen Las Vegas NV 126,500
Ante 500 Blinds 1,500/3,000 45 minutes left in this level.
To make the task of winning today by a tourist even more daunting, two of the Vegans are repeaters from earlier events. Huck Seed and Billy Baxter already know the score. They’ll been here before. Plus, Huck won an event a few days ago. On paper this is no contest. Las Vegas is a lock. Win Place and Show? Maybe.
The problem as the favorite is that most of the players that leave are yours. One by one the Vegans hit the rail, starting with a horrible beat on Tan Le administered by Huck Seed. Tan Le doesn’t have enough chips to protect his pocket Aces on hand number seven. He started last in chips and that’s where he finished, 9th. Tan gets his hide bronzed when he goes all-in with pocket Aces from the small blind for his case 40k. Tan comes over the top of Huck Seed who’d made it 10k to go under the gun. It’s an easy call for the chip leader Seed with pocket Jacks. The Jacks are no good as an underpair, but the Jack of Diamonds is good when something bad happens for Tan Le. Diamonds keep coming and coming. With a third diamond on the turn and a fourth on the river, Seed’s flush plants Le in the basement.
To make the odds even more daunting for the tourists, Texan Gary Friedlander is next out in 8th place. Now it’s 6-1 Las Vegas. Only Cuong Huyhn is left to defend the honor of Los Angeles as the No Limit capital of the world.
Friedlander makes his move on hand 16 with a bet of 12k in late position. Huck Seed is in the big blind with pocket Queens and Huck visually counts Gary down. Seed tosses out just enough chips to cover Friedlander, if Gary should decide to go all-in. Gary has A K offsuit and he calls immediately. Big slick has been getting killed this whole tournament. It’s down and out in Las Vegas for the Texan when the Queens hold up.
Dangerous Dan McGuire proves to be dangerous only to himself. Dan tries pocket 8’s for his last 11k under the gun on hand 19. McGuire doesn’t hit any home runs at this table and fails to win a hand. Dan’s 8’s run up against Billy Baxter’s pocket Aces. Bad timing gets you 7th place.
Everyday of this tournament we’ve had one beginning short stack go on a rush. Today that player is George Huber. The guy gets more pairs that a fruit tree. And every one of them is holding up. It’s amazing to watch. There are guys going out on all sides of George with Aces, 8’s and A K. Huber is just cruising along with any pair, and no chips to protect them. You can’t beat luck. Of course, all of HIS pair are golden.
When we get to six players the pace slows down quite a bit. We see four flops in 30 hands as whoever can muster a bet takes the puny pot down. There were several all-ins during this time, but zero callers of those all-in bets.
Discounting the hype that has surrounded poker since the explosion of interest caused by television, the players know that there are very few GREAT poker players. One of the few greats acknowledged by the old-timers is Billy Baxter. Billy has won millions playing poker for over 40 years. He’s won multiple WSOP bracelets. He is probably the best lowball player on the planet. Yada, yada, yada.
So the great Billy Baxter is the next one out.
After his pocket Aces crushed Dan McGuire, Baxter’s cards went dead. Starting fourth in chips, Billy finishes in a surprising 6th place. He couldn’t get a hand or make a hand. Billy tries pocket 5’s for 44k on hand 54, but he’s up against the pair man George Huber with pocket Queens. Presto doesn’t work it’s magic this time. Baxter has 6k left and one has to be anted. The torture ends for Baxter on the next hand. He’s all-in, first to act, for a grand total of 5,000. He has J 6 offsuit. Cuong Huyhn is in the big blind with a monster, 10 3 off. The 10 flops and Baxter flops out.
Tomer Benvenisti has become a media darling since his appearance on the 2003 WSOP telecast. He comes over to his wife on the sidelines complaining about the cards he’s getting repeatedly: 7 2, 8 3. Finally he takes a stand all-in for 18k with K J offsuit. Frank Cremen is the donator that gives Tomer a chip transplant to keep him alive. Frank has the best hand at all times except on the river. The board comes 10 6 5 9 K. Tomer’s fans are yelling “any paint” on the turn and the King comes up.
That hand turns out to decide who gets 5th place. It’s the last dagger in the heart of Frank Cremen. The young man wearing a ‘In It To Win It’ t-shirt, didn’t win it and is no longer in it after hand 73. This was just a bad day for Frank. He never looked comfortable sitting right behind the perpetually raising Huck Seed. What should have been the best position at the table, to the right of a maniac, turned out for Cremen to be the worst one. He ended up continually having to pay too much for flops that didn’t get there. Still Cremen had plenty of chips until a fateful misread got him destroyed. Against the surging Cuong Huyhn, Frank decides his two pair is the best hand. The board comes 8 8 2. Frank has pocket 4’s in the big blind. When Huyhn bets out 45k on the flop, Cremen still has 80k left. He can fold and probably finish higher than 5th.. Instead he calls off all his chips with 8’s and 4’s. Cuong Huyhn has pocket 6’s and more than enough chips to knock Cremen out.
One by one the Vegans leave. On the next hand Tomer Benvenisti is history. Tomer makes an extra $4,400 in prize money for lasting longer than Cremen into 4th place. Benvenisti goes all-in for 38k with A 10 offsuit in the big blind. Unfortunately for Tomer, he’s up against George Huber who never has anything less than a pair. This time Huber has Queens, which are just high enough to get over the 10 that Tomer flops. Bye big guy, we’ll see you soon undoubtedly.
Three handed Huck Seed and Cuong Huyhn have about 280k each and George Huber has swelled up to 80k. It’s still 2-1 Las Vegas, but Win Place and Show is no longer an option.
Two days ago Huck Seed won an event at this Final Table. On that day, like this one, Huck was the starting chip leader. Unlike that day, this day he has Cuong Huyhn at the table. From the time it becomes three handed, Huck Seed goes straight into the dumpster. Cuong is the new sheriff at the table and he’s jailing everyone. Huck continues to raise most hands, but when the flop comes K Q 8 on hand 83, Seed has to muck when Cuong bets out 45k on the flop. Huyhn is now the chip leader and can bust Huck on any hand.
And that’s exactly what Cuong Huyhn does. He busts Huck Seed.
It takes a little while but it seems inevitable. Huyhn is toying with Seed. He asks him to straight his baseball cap. He asks Jack McClelland if he can go smoke while Huck makes a decision. Cuong Huyhn is a high-limit player at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. At 45, Cuong has been a pro for 10 years making a living in one of the toughest venues in the poker world. He knows how to handle pressure and how to apply it.
When Huck raises his standard 24k on hand 100, Cuong goes all-in for over 300k. Seed has 160k left and takes several minutes of agonized contemplation to decide what to do. He nearly throws the hand away a half dozen times, but keeps pulling it back. Across the table George Huber is praying that Huck calls. The difference between second and third place is $27,800. Huck can only hope that he has two overcards if he calls with his A Q offsit. Finally, Seed pulls the trigger and calls. George Huber jumps up and shouts before he sees the cards. Huber knows one of the two will be crippled or eliminated.
Cuong Huyhn has a dominating hand over Huck’s A Q. Cuong has A K offsuit. Huck Seed is shelled in 3rd. He tried to win it rather than holding on until George Huber was gone. No shame whatsoever in trying to win.
With a better than 3-1 chip, Cuong Huyhn makes short work of George Huber. In five hands it’s over. Cuong makes it 20k, George reraises to 75k. Huber has 80k left. Cuong calls with J 9 off. Then Huyhn goes all-in with second pair on the flop of 10 9 2. For once George Huber doesn’t have a pair and it costs him. George has K Q off for two overcards and a gutshot straight. Huber needs ‘any paint’ but the pictures don’t come.
Los Angeles wins this one as a big underdog.
Las Vegas will be back.
Mike Paulle
MikePaulle@PokerPages.com
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