Poker Tournament Results

Legends of Poker - WPT Season 4

Place	Name	Prize
1	Dennis Waterman (Sedona, AZ, USA)	$119,325
2	Carol Fuchs (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$58,855
3	Thor Hansen (El Segundo, CA, USA)	$29,025
4	Minh Nguyen (Lake Elsinore, CA, USA)	$19,350
5	Carmel Petresco (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$14,510
6	Sirous Baghchehsaraie (Long Beach, CA, USA)	$11,285
7	Makram Merhom (Glendale, CA, USA)	$8,060
8	Larry Vance (Lakewood, CA, USA)	$6,450
9	Massoud Setayesh (Laguna Hills, CA, USA)	$4,835
10	Mayen Grigorian (Northridge, CA, USA)	$4,030
11	Josefino Datuin (Orange, CA, USA)	$4,030
12	Jerry Richardson (Irvine, CA, USA)	$4,030
13	Sung Yi (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$3,225
14	Jeffrey Walker (Scottsdale, AZ, USA)	$3,225
15	Khiem Nguyen (Sacremento, CA, USA)	$3,225
16	Sayed Kadri (Diamond Bar, CA, USA)	$2,420
17	Shyan Madiraju (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$2,420
18	David Zarrian (Torrance, CA, USA)	$2,420
19	Sang Pham (Fountain Valley, CA, USA)	$1,615
20	Kirk Conrad (Orange, CA, USA)	$1,615
21	Loc Vo (San Jose, CA, USA)	$1,615
22	David Levi (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$1,615
23	Daniel Alaei AKA "daniel" (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$1,615
24	Young Song (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$1,615
25	Bill Waleed (Moreno Valley, CA, USA)	$1,615
26	Lance Matsui (Monterey Park, CA, USA)	$1,615
27	Benjamin Chung (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$1,615
28	Si Mai (Costa Mesa, CA, USA)	$805
29	Alen Patatanyan (Encino, CA, USA)	$805
30	Marc Lebowitz (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$805
31	Keith Boyarsky (N. Hollywood, CA, USA)	$805
32	Abraham Gray (Lawrenceville, GA, USA)	$805
33	Duke Truong (Arcadia, CA, USA)	$805
34	M. M. Tran (Torrance, CA, USA)	$805
35	Bedo Danayan AKA "Peter" (Pasadena, CA, USA)	$805
36	Steve Reitzfeld (Culver City, CA, USA)	$805

Tournament Report

Logger Wins in 8-Way Deal Event 10 of Legends of Poker 2005 ended in an eight-way chop where the negotiations seemed to take longer than the 32 hands that had been played to that point. Dennis Waterman had a huge lead with 211,500 of the 530,560 chips in play and when agreement was finally reached, he was declared the winner. Waterman said it was a strange win because he had very few hands throughout the tournament, and a major part of his victory came from picking off bluffs. Waterman, who had worked as a logger in Oregon until he was 50, and thinks he may hold the world's record for making final tables, arrived at this final table with a chip-leading $124,500. Not far behind him was Carol Fuchs, a movie screenwriter, with $107,000, and she was still in second place when the deal was done. This was a $150,000 guarantee event. It attracted a door-busting 426 players who made 649 rebuys and generated the largest prize pool to date in the history of Legends, outside of the championship events: $322,500. There was 9:41 left on the clock, playing with $500 antes and $1,500-$3,000 blinds, when final-table action began. An immediate chip count was called for and calculated, but when there was an objection to any deal, play got underway. It didn't take long to lose our first player. Mayer Grigorian, a stockbroker (and no relation to Chris), risked his last $5,000 with Ah-2h and was beaten by Carmel Petresco's A-8 when the board came 10-9-7-5-8. After blinds went to $2,000-$4,000, there were a number of all-ins without fatalities. Minh "Poker Host" Nguyen (who is a poker host for a Costa Rica-based online site also called Poker Host) had a close call when he moved in for $11,500 with A-5 and was called by Waterman with A-8. But he earned a chop when the board came K-9-6-6-A. Nguyen, who has two WSOP bracelets, was making his second consecutive final table. Petresco, a professional player with a number of small wins, lost chips to an all-in Nguyen when his Qs-7s outdrew her A-K. On the next hand, she returned the favor. This time she was all in with A-3 against Nguyen's A-Q and made trip treys. "If A-K doesn't work, A-3 does," observed Sirous Baghchehsaraie, winner of event number 2, Omaha hi-lo. His eventual sixth-place finish tonight moved him into second place, behind Men "The Master" Nguyen, in the all-around points race. A couple of hands later, Massoud Setayesh busted out in ninth place. Waterman, with Js-8s, put him in with draws to a flush and inside straight. "I had to call," Setayesh said afterwards. He had A-7 and flopped a 7, then got blown away when Waterman hit his spade flush on the river. Blinds soon went to $3,000-$6,000 with $1,500 antes, and once again a chip count was taken after players returned from a break. Waterman at this point had zoomed to a big lead with $211,500. Following him were Fuchs, $80,000; Thor Hansen, $48,500; Nguyen, $47,500; Petresco, $43,000; Baghchehsaraie, $39,500; Makram Merhom, $37,500; and Larry Vance, $32,000. Protracted and sometimes agitated negotiations ensued. Baghchehsaraie and Merhom was the most vocal, while at the other end, Vance, a retired ballroom dancer, sat quietly reading a book. Finally, after considerable give and take, a deal was reached, and the former logger had logged another win. - Max Shapiro BIOGRAPHY Dennis Waterman, by his own estimate, has made some 2,000 final tables, including online tournaments and super satellites, which is a specialty of his. Besides playing poker, Waterman, whose nickname is "Swami," also teaches meditation and writes. Some of his major tournament accomplishments include a no-limit hold'em win at the Bellagio Five Diamond event, a win at Winnin' o' the Green in pot-limit hold'em, a second in no-limit hold'em at Commerce's Cal State Poker Championship, a fourth in pot-limit hold'em at the 2003 World Series, and a fourth at the Professional Poker Tour event this year, along with several final tables at the Los Angeles Poker Classic. Overall, one data base credits him with more than 50 cashes at major tournaments. Tonight, he said he built up chips early on by picking off a big bluff. Basically, he kept going by picking off more bluffs and making calls in the big blind with weak hands because the math was correct. He never had aces; had kings once and lost. His next biggest hands were two 10s once and A-K once.