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Poker Tournament Results

38th Annual World Series of Poker

Event #51 - WSOP S.H.O.E

July 1, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
Tournament Schedule

Buy-In	$1,000
Prize Pool	$664,300
Entries	730
Report Available

Dao Bac

Place	Name	Prize
1	Dao Bac (Garden Grove, CA, USA)	$157,975
2	Richard Adam Geyer (Austin, TX, USA)	$86,691
3	Chip Jett (Henderson, NV, USA)	$55,801
4	Raymond Davis AKA "The Amazing" (Commerce, CA, USA)	$34,012
5	Imre Leibold (Tallinn, Estonia)	$26,572
6	Vladimir Schemelev (Russia)	$20,793
7	Michael Craig (Scottsdale, AZ, USA)	$15,943
8	Patrick Poels (Mesa, AZ, USA)	$11,957
9	Eric Tomberlin (Jacksonville, FL, USA)	$8,171
10	Juliano Maesano (Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil)	$8,171
11	David Duran (Englewood, CA, USA)	$7,507
12	Douglas Carli AKA "Rico" (Alliance, OH, USA)	$7,507
13	Wai Kei Liu (UK)	$6,842
14	Matt Matros (Bronxville, NY, USA)	$6,842
15	Susan Genard (Santa Monica, CA, USA)	$6,178
16	Scott Clark (St. Louis, MO, USA)	$6,178
17	Daniel Lown (Bullhead City, AZ, USA)	$5,514
18	John Myung (Vienna, VA, USA)	$5,514
19	Michael Klarman (Philadelphia, PA, USA)	$5,514
20	Gregory Rosebeck	$5,514
21	Justin Thomas AKA "ponyneck" (Westfield, NY, USA)	$5,514
22	Bonnie Leinhos (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$5,514
23	Dan Fishell (Phoenix, AZ, USA)	$5,514
24	Diego Cordovez (Palo Alto, CA, USA)	$5,514
25	David Allison	$4,849
26	Hooman Nikzad AKA "Houdini" (Scottsdale, AZ, USA)	$4,849
27	Joseph Gotlieb (Hollywood, FL, USA)	$4,849
28	George Lind (Gilbert, AZ, USA)	$4,849
29	Jonathan Tare (New York, NY, USA)	$4,849
30	Petros Theocharides (Gilbert, AZ, USA)	$4,849
31	Gary Do (Denver, CO, USA)	$4,849
32	Denise Molloy (La Jolla, CA, USA)	$4,849
33	Frank Digiorgio (Los Angeles, CA, USA)	$4,185
34	Ali Eslami (Van Nuys, CA, USA)	$4,185
35	Brandon Leeds (Phoenix, AZ, USA)	$4,185
36	Doug Saab (Trussville, AL, USA)	$4,185
37	Paul Albino	$4,185
38	Ed Fernandez (San Jose, CA, USA)	$4,185
39	Tim Leung (Oceanside, CA, USA)	$4,185
40	Artie Cobb (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$4,185
41	Mitch Maples (Sugar Land, TX, USA)	$3,521
42	Salim Manna	$3,521
43	Alex Kravchenko (Moscow, Russia)	$3,521
44	Curtis Rystadt (Portland, OR, USA)	$3,521
45	Earl Odom AKA "dumchit" (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$3,521
46	Larry Willis (Mesquite, NV, USA)	$3,521
47	Brian Nadell (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$3,521
48	Frank Okasaki (Springfield, VA, USA)	$3,521
49	Ken Nay (Bouder, CO, USA)	$2,856
50	Nick Polydoros (Anthem, AZ, USA)	$2,856
51	James Droke (Fort Myers, FL, USA)	$2,856
52	Gary Benson (Sydney, Australia)	$2,856
53	Lou Ercolano (NJ)	$2,856
54	Michael Adamo (Turks and Caicos Islands)	$2,856
55	Jeff Campbell (Atlanta, GA, USA)	$2,856
56	Don Frederick (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$2,856
57	Hani Awad (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$2,192
58	David Kornhauser	$2,192
59	Sanjay Pandya (Smithville, NJ, USA)	$2,192
60	Mark Streckfus (Austin, TX, USA)	$2,192
61	Kyle Morris (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$2,192
62	Walter Browne (Berkeley, CA, USA)	$2,192
63	Darran Norris	$2,192
64	Thomas Love (Marietta, OH, USA)	$2,192
65	Barry Hartheimer (New York, NY, USA)	$1,528
66	Erik Seidel (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$1,528
67	John Bunch (Las Vegas, NV, USA)	$1,528
68	Jeraint Hazan (London, UK)	$1,528
69	Steve Hegyi (New South Wales, Australia)	$1,528
70	Michael Schneider (Covington, GA, USA)	$1,528
71	Michael Lemkin AKA "Doctor Doom, MikieMike" (Santa Monica, CA, USA)	$1,528
72	Alexandra Vuong (Ranco Palos Verde, CA, USA)	$1,528

Tournament Report

The winner of the Limit S.H.O.E. championship was Dao Bac, from Garden Grove, CA. He is a 51-year-old professional poker player. This was his first victory ever at the World Series of Poker.
-- Bac was born in Vietnam. He arrived in the United States in 1989. He is married and has two children.
-- During much of the tournament, Bac read from a leather-bound book when he was not involved in a hand. Bac is a practicing Buddhist. He read from a book on prayer and meditation, he said "to keep him calm during the tournament." Whatever was written in the book must have worked, as Bac remained cool throughout the three-day event and eventually collected $157,975 in prize money.
-- Bac is the first Vietnamese poker player to win a gold bracelet at this year's World Series. Vietnamese-born poker players have enjoyed perhaps the highest per capita WSOP wins and earnings of any nationality. However, this year has been a relative drought for the nation that produced the likes of Men Nguyen, David Pham, Tony Ma, and others.
-- This was Bac's ninth tournament entry this year. He had yet to cash until this moment. Bac did cash twice last year, with winnings totaling just $5,000. Since 1990, Bac has been playing mostly cash games at casinos around San Diego and Los Angeles. He played $3-6 hold'em for many years and gradually became good enough to move up to middle-limit games. Bac has won major tournaments elsewhere and has multiple cashes.
-- Bac was cheered on by a large entourage, which included family and friends. When asked about his plans to celebrate, he said he will go out to a nice dinner later in the evening. He will give the gold bracelet to his wife, Hanh Nguyen.
-- S.H.O.E. is a rotation of poker which includes four games - Seven-Card Stud, Limit Hold'em, Omaha High-Low, and Stud Eight-or-Better. It has been part of the WSOP menu intermittently for the last decade. It was originally a marketing-driven initiative when the WSOP was played at what was formally Binion's Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas. In fact, a H.O.R.S.E. event routinely preceded the S.H.O.E. tournament, thus making for the duo of events which spelled out "Horseshoe."
-- Poker writer Michael Craig made his second final table appearance this year. He ended up going out in 7th place. Craig is the author of two books, "The Professor, the Baker, and the Suicide King," as well as "The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide - Tournament Edition."
-- Two-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Pat Poels was the 9th-place finisher. The Mesa, AZ poker player's bid for win number three came up short. Had he won, Poels would have won gold bracelets in each of the last three years.
-- Other former WSOP event winners from the past who cashed included Diego Cordovez (24th), Doug Saab (36 th), and Erik Seidel (66th).
-- by Nolan Dalla