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Driver Gets Bounty Victory
Tommy Wang, a truck driver, has played a lot of tournaments, but until today he had not won any. In fact, he had never even made a final table. But tonight changed everything. He came to the table with a sizeable chip lead and still had it when the five finalists, after a grueling, seemingly endless contest that stretched on for 112 hands, finally agreed to a chip-count deal, and he was declared the winner.
This was a bounty tournament, with players collecting disks worth $50 each time they knocked out a player. There were 32 minutes left when the last 10 contestants, all with at least one bounty disk, sat down playing with blinds of $500-$1,000 and $1,000-$2,000 limits.
Nine hands went by with no action. Minh 'Poker Host' Nguyen was down to $1,000 after posting his blinds. 'You're all waiting for me to go out,' he said. 'It's not gonna happen. Loosen up.' His warning proved true. At least for a while. Three hands later he put in his last chip with Ah-3h. The board came 4-4-2-5-4. Nobody had a pair (though Andy Pham had folded a 4 pre-flop), and Nguyen's wheel got him to $6,000. But five hands later he was all in again with Q-Q against Van Mahesh's A-K and went broke when a king flopped.
Right after limits went to $1,500-$3,000 on the 28th deal, two players went out in very dramatic hands. First, Luke Sigle was all in with Ks-Qs against Karl DiBona's A-4. A flop of Js-9s-9c gave Sigle a straight flush draw. He caught an offsuit king on the river, but DiBona had turned an ace, and Sigle, a student, flunked out in ninth place.
Two hands later, the flop came Qh-8c-5c. The turn was a 10c, giving Jay Hong, with Ac-4c, a nut flush, and he went all in. But it also gave Andrew Weinstein a set of 10s. A river 5 paired the board to give Weinstein a full house, and cut the field to seven.
Pham departed on hand 37. Short-chipped, he went all in from the cut-off seat with A-5. He had the lead against Andrew Weinstein, who had K-2, until a king turned to leave Pham in seventh place.
At the next break, when limits went to $2,000-$4,000, we still had six players, even though Howard Ross, a retired medical consultant, had survived three all-ins. Wang and DiBona had the bulk of the chips, both with about $60,000 or so.
It took a grueling 42 hands from the time that Pham departed until we lost our next player. Weinstein, a tax attorney, said he had been very lucky earlier in the tournament, but couldn't do very much at the final table. Finally, after DiBona raised with pocket treys, he called with Jd-7d. DiBona flopped a set and Weinstein cashed out sixth.
On hand 90, limits went to $3,000-$6,000, with no end in sight. On and on the contest went, until it was 2 a.m. and the final table had been going for two and a half hours and 112 hands. Finally, the weary players decided to consider a chip count. Wang had the most with $52,500, followed by DiBono, $34,000; Mike Daniels, $33,000; Ross, $31,500; and Mahesh, $27,000. They quickly agreed to the split, and Tommy the trucker drove off with the win. -Max Shapiro
BIOGRAPHY
Tommy Wang seemed as surprised as he was happy after coming in first in the limit-hold'em bounty event of Legends 2005, his first-ever victory after playing poker for six or seven years. He immediately decided he will now play in the $5,000 championship finale. Though most of her poker time has been spent in tournaments, he also plays cash games, the size depending on how much money he has. It ranges from $8-$16 (for jackpot games) to $20-$40. 'But if I'm broke, I'll play $1-$2,' he adds. He also plays $500 no- limit action.
He didn't have a lot of chips tonight until there were three tables left. Then, in three-way action, he went up against one player with A-Q and another with pocket kings. He had pocket jacks, flopped a set, won a huge pot and after that was largely in command for the rest of the night.
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