Nobody watching the final table of the $2,500 Omaha hi-lo event doubted that “Tony” Ma had it locked. Unrelentingly aggressive, he had been unstoppable, and with three players left, the man who was Player of the year in 1999 and runner-up in 2000 had accumulated about $300,000 of the $447,000 in chips on the table. But when he got heads-up with Bob Slezak, still with a massive chip lead, it all turned around. Slezak was now playing super-aggressively, and within 13 hands the man from (appropriately enough) Omaha had all the chips.
“Once we were heads-up, I felt all the pressure off me, and I could sense it on Tony,” Slezak said. “I was determined to find cards and the deck hit me.”
Slezak, 43, gave up his job as chief financial officer of Ameritrade, an on-line brokerage house, 18 months ago and decided to try his hand at poker. A fiercely combative athlete in tennis and basketball, he wanted an activity to satisfy his competitive instincts where age wouldn’t be a factor. This is his first final table at a major tournament. Until now he’s played mostly riverboat side games in Council Bluff, Iowa. The one downside to winning this event, he said,was that he had to postpone a flight home and missed the birthday party of his 9-year-old son, Scott.
The final table started with $2,000-$4,000 limits, and it started with brisk action. On the first hand, both Ma and “Pizza Man” Michael Davis held A-2 and flopped a wheel. A $59,000 pot developed, and Ma got three-fourths of it when he also made a six-high straight on the river. On the second hand, retired computer programmer Jack Culp, with six final table finishes at the WSOP, got in a hand against Michel Abecassis of Paris. He held A-3-3-K, and when Abecassis bet a flop of Q-Q-9, he tried a steal by raising all in for $3,500. Michel, with A-2-4-7, didn’t have anything either, but he did have a lot of chips, so he called. Michel paired his seven on the turn, all he needed to knock Culp out.
Michel has an amazing resume. He is a former physician, a former editor of Elle magazine and a world class bridge player who also has tournament wins in Omaha and hold’em from the Aviation Club. He started with a chip lead of $100,500, but quickly went downhill. His first big hit came when he made deuces full and lost to queens full made on the river by Michael Yoshihara, a self-described “small-time gambler.” Later he said he had abominable luck, being dealt A-2-2-4 four times in six hands in early action, losing each time.
Within 20 hands, a second player departed. Englishman John Shipley raised with 3-5-6-8. Poker player Wing Wong, with a suited A-2-3-5, re-raised him all in, flopped a nut flush and Shipley was sunk. Ma and Davis then have a re-match. Both have A-2 again, and this time the Pizza Man gets three-quarters with a low and two nines. But, with limits raised to $6,000-$12,000 Ma has the last word. Dealt a dream hand of A-2-3-4, Davis gets a good flop of Q-7-2, giving him a nut low draw that can’t be copied and a pair. Ma has A-10-5-5. Two paints hit the board, Tony wins with two fives and Pizza Man finishes seventh.
Wing Wong went out when he raised with 3-4-6-Q pre-flop and Slezak re- raised him all in with A-6-9-J. The board didn’t bring a thing for Wing and Slezak’s paired nine finished him.
Yoshihara, all in against Slezak’s straight six, is happy to be quartered when a river three gives both players a wheel. On the next hand, though, he went all in again with A-2-9-Q. Slezak, with with A-2-8-J, and landscape contractor Tony Fay, with 3-7-10-J, check it down. The A-2’s get counterfeited, Fay scoops with a low and two tens and now four are left.
At this point, the two Tonys lead, Ma with about $165,000 and Fay with around $120,000. Ma began to increase his lead by picking up pots with raises, then nailed Fay by beating his three nines with a straight. Then, flopping a set of deuces, he left Abecassis with only $6,000. On a roll now, Tony finished him off on the next hand in a manner that left the Frenchman shaking his head. Tony had A-K-Q-10. Michel had A-A-3-8 double suited. The flop was K-4-5 of clubs, Michel led with aces to Tony’s paired king and had draws to a nut flush, a wheel or any low. No low cards or clubs hit, but a river ten gave Ma two pair.
Ma now had what looked like an insurmountable lead of $300,000. With limits raised to $10,000-$20,000, Fay made a brief comeback by scooping Slezak with a nut flush. After losing a couple of pots he was down to $5,000, then tripled up twice to $45,000 before Ma finally scooped up his last chips. Starting with K-J-6-3, Tony caught a gut-shot four on the river for a seven-high straight and a final match-up.
On the second hand heads-up, Slezak flopped a set of kings. The next hand Ma folded when Slezak bet a board of K-6-2-10 with three hearts, and suddenly Bob had about $185,000 to Tony’s $260,000. A few hands later, Tony again refused to make a river call, and Bob showed him a full house.
The crusher came when Ma made a straight on the turn with a re-draw to a king-high diamond flush. A seven of diamonds hit the river. Bob checked, Tony bet, Bob check-raised and won a $220,000 pot with an ace-high flush.
Suddenly a frustrated Ma was on the ropes. On the final hand, Ma, with Q-Q-K-J to Slezak’s 7-7-5-4, bet a flop of 10-7-2. Slezak raised with his set, then put Ma all in and took Tony’s last chips when the board didn’t save him. And so the gold bracelet that seemed destined to be Ma’s third instead ended up on the wrist of a relatively inexperienced but very determined player.
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