Sirous Gets Omaha/8 Win
Sirous Baghchehsaraie and Mo Fathipour, who are best friends, ended up going at each other heads-up in tonight's $500 Omaha hi-lo contest. With five players left, Fathipour, a no-limit host at the Bike, had a commanding lead with four times as many chips as Sirous. After that, everything went Sirous' way, and when they got heads-up, it was Sirous who had a 3-1/2 to 1 lead.
After 24 hands, Sirous offered a little extra, and Fathipour conceded. Fathipour said the turnaround was due to Sirous' much greater experience, while Sirous modestly attributed it to luck.
Only eight players made it to the final table, where limits began at 1k/2k with 500 antes, 18:51 left. On hand eight, Rusty Mandap made quad kings. Dien Ly had his A-2 counterfeited but managed to make a low with a back-up 7. On hand 13, after blinds had gone to 1k/1.5k with 1.5k/3k limits, Ly was less fortunate. He was all in with A-K-J-J. Fathipour had Ad-4d-2-10. He made a nut flush when the board came 8-4-2-5-K with diamonds, and Ly was first out.
On hand 19, Mandap suffered the kind of beat that Omaha is notorious for. He started with A-A-2-3 with a suited ace, a hand that doesn't get much better. When the board came 10-3-2-Q-2, he had an unexpected full house. Sirous, starting with another great low hand, A-2-4-Q, ended up with a bigger deuces-full! Mandap was down to 1,500 and went broke holding 9-9-Q-6 in the big blind after Fathipour, with A-4-5-J, made aces and jacks.
The players now made a chip-count deal for most of the money with this count: Sirous, 27k; Michael Guterplan, 20k; Fathipour, 18.5k; Tim Sweeton, 13k; Brett (Gank) Jungblut, 7.5k; and Eulises Molina, 20k. From there on out until the late stages, it was pretty much all Fathipour. Four hands later, Guterplan, an attorney, was all in from the small blind with A-5-8-9. Fathipur had 2-4-4-J and hearts in the big. Fathipour flopped the number two low, then hit his flush to knock Guterplan out in sixth place. By the time limits went to 2k/4k, Fathipour had about 46k in chips while Sirous had 11k and the other four players had less.
Jungblutt, who owns a bracelet in Omaha/8, had been all in and survived four times. On hand 42 he had a tremendous A-2-3-4 against Sirous' A-2-7-Q. The flop came Ac-Qc-8h. Fathipour bet, Sirous raised with top two and Jungblut called with his paired ace and nut low draw. No low came, Sirous bet the river and Jungblut, hoping Sirous was bluffing, called all in and finished fifth. Sirous now had the lead with about 40k. A few hands later, Sirous, with A-A-3-6, made aces full on the river to beat Fathipour's straight, and now had about 60k. Molina, a taxi driver, went all in for 3k when he had 4-5-6-7 and the board showed Q-8-10. He missed everything, and Fathipour took him out with pocket kings. It got heads-up when Sweeten, a realtor, had A-9-9-8 and bet all when he flop of J-10-6 gave him an open-end straight draw. Sirous, with K-Q-3-3, also had an open-ender and hit it with a river ace.
Badly out-chipped, Fathipour couldn't recover. He got hurt by being quartered twice. After going all in and surviving three times in the last four hands, he accepted Sirous' deal and a long evening was over. -Max Shapiro
BIOGRAPHY
Sirous Baghchehsaraie, who has been playing poker since 1997, has had numerous tournament cashes. His biggest came when he won $182,480 for winning a $300 no-limit event at last year's LAPC, and $64,467 for finishing first in the $500 Omaha/8 event in at the World Poker Open in Tunica this past January. While he said he was very lucky tonight, he also felt he was very sharp and playing his top game. 'I had a good sense of the cards, and made some good laydowns,' he said.
While Baghchehsarai plays many games, he feels that Omaha/8 is his best one. The key hand for him tonight came at the second table. A big pot developed when a player, who Baghchehsarai put on aces, kept betting. When a deuce paired the board, Baghchehsarai bet out on a pure bluff, and the disgusted player threw his hand away.
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