Poker Tournament Results

33rd Annual World Series of Poker

Layne Flack

Tournament Report

AN INSTANT CLASSIC With the few words available in this report it would be impossible to fully describe one of the great Final Tables of WSOP history. It is highly recommended to anyone who loves poker, that they watch the video of this instant classic on www.PokerPages.com. There were 449 entrants in the $2,000 Buy-In, No-Limit Hold'em for a total prize pool of $844,120. Four tables were paid, a total of 36 players. Having pocket Aces cracked only a few players out of the money doesn't help the cause. Mike Sexton went out 37th, a little later, to Martine Oules when his A K lost to her J 10. The Final Table was setup Tuesday afternoon when the famous A 9 beat the famous A Q, again. Instead of Chris Ferguson and T J Cloutier for the Championship, it was Mark Gregorich who spiked a 9 to put Patri Friedman out in 11th. It took 16 hours over two days to get this far. And we'd only just begun. THE FINAL TABLE: 11 mins left of 75. The blinds are $1,500/$3,000 with a $500 ante. Seat#--- Player------ Hometown----- Chip Count Seat 1 Percy Regimbal - Welland, Ontario $56,500 Seat 2 Harry Demetriou - London, UK $109,000 Seat 3 Mark Gregorich - Las Vegas NV $125,000 Seat 4 Bernard Damron - St Cloud, France $67,000 Seat 5 Al Korson - Albuquerque NM $12,000 Seat 6 Tom Jacobs - Las Vegas NV $105,000 Seat 7 Joanne Bortner - Palo Alto CA $169,500 Seat 8 Sirous Baghchehsaraie - Los Angeles CA $67,000 Seat 9 Layne Flack - Las Vegas NV $165,000 Seat 10 Doug Kim - Cedar Park TX $22,000 Finishing last or 9th wasn't Doug Kim's concern, he needed chips. So Doug went all-in under the gun with his $18,5k. Percy Regimbal called. Then Sirous B. (no one wants to repeat that last name) came over the top all-in to get heads up against Kim. Doug had A 10 and Sirous A K, which cruised. Last it was for Doug Kim. There is a club of poker players in Canada, near Niagara Falls, who sent the six winners of their local tournaments to Vegas for this event. Percy Regimbal did the club proud by making the Final Table. When Percy made his move all-in for $35k with pocket 6's, he had a caller. Layne Flack had limped in with K Q right in front of Percy and didn't hesitate to call. With a King on the flop, Regimbal's story to the guys back home was complete. Sirous B can get down on himself for mistakes. But he has a sunny disposition and will bounce right back. When Harry Demetriou slow-played his pocket Aces, it was intended to trap someone. Sometimes the trap backfires on the trapper, but not this time. With a flop of K 9 4, Sirous B went all-in for about $85k and K 7 in the big blind. Harry sprung the trap by calling and turning over his Aces. Sirous grabbed his head in anguish. Another dream deferred. Having Joanne (J.J.) Bortner as your big blind can be a harrowing experience. J.J. has one of the quickest trigger fingers in the business. When Al Korson went all-in with pocket 9's on the button with about $45k, it took less than a second for Bortner to call. Joanne had her pocket Jacks turned over before her words evaporated in the air. Korson, who'd played so well on a short stack, hit the bricks in 7th. Now Joanne was Bernard Damron's big blind. Bernard failed to learn from Al Korson. No one can intimidate J.J. Bortner. She came over the top all-in and had her Q's turned over before the crowd had realized that Damron went all-in from the second button with his $48k and the Jack and 10 of Spades. No pair. No spades. No contest. At times Joanne Bortner can appear to be a force of nature. She's that strong a player. But the confidence she always has in her hands can also be misplaced as well. When play began Tuesday afternoon with 24 players left, J.J. had a better than 2-1 chip lead on the field. Starting the Final Table, that lead had shrunk to $4,500. Two hands ended J.J.'s day. Both involved pocket 10's. She lost with them and she lost to them. Bortner was near the chip lead (but J.J. would never play it safe) when she went all-in on the button with pocket 10's. Harry Demetriou held pocket Kings in the big blind and was happy to call. Joanne lost half her stack on that hand. Like a wounded tigress, Joanne fought to regain her strength. She could have hid for a while licking her wounds, making more money, but that's not how Bortner plays. She took the first opportunity to go all-in again. This time she was in the small blind with pocket 3's. If there is anyone with an even quicker trigger finger than J.J. Bortner it's Layne Flack. Layne called in a nanosecond with pocket 10's in the big blind. Conservative play at this Final Table might have gotten Bortner another $100,000 in prize money. But then she wouldn’t be J.J. The polar opposite of J.J. Bortner's is the play of Mark Gregorich. For the first five hours of this Final Table, Mark never once played back at someone who raised his bet. It's a miracle, really, that he lasted to 4th. That was mainly because of the respect he usually got for any of the rare bets he made. But four handed, it was costing Mark $2,500 a hand to play so he had to come out of his shell. Gregorich raised all-in for about $60k under the gun with J 10 offsuit. $60k was coffee money for the chip leader Layne Flack in the small blind. Layne called with K J for a dominant hand over Mark's. The never-flustered Gregorich calmly took his leave in 4th. Now there were two vastly experienced pros in Layne Flack and Tom Jacobs with an almost complete novice in Harry Demetriou. It wasn't a fair fight. Sitting right behind Layne Flack on most hands, Harry would repeatedly agonize over how to play his cards as Flack would so often raise in front of him. For someone who had only been playing No-Limit for three months, Harry had done fabulously well. He even had the chip lead a couple of times. Now down to his last $200k, Demetriou was in a tough spot. He flopped top pair with Queens heads up against Layne Flack, but he had a lousy kicker. Harry felt he may have the best hand, anyway, and went all-in with Q 6. Layne had Q J and turned two pair when a Jack came to make the precocious novice draw dead in 3rd. There was only one WSOP bracelet at this table and Layne Flack had it. Tom Jacobs had been close several times over the years, but his 2nd place a few years back was still his best finish. It still is. You'll have to watch the video to appreciate the titanic struggle between these two warriors. It would take thousands of words to begin to do their battle justice. No one has the space for thousands of words. The truncated version of this instant classic is that both Flack and Jacobs took commanding chip leads over each other and lost those leads back, not once but several times. It was a hyper Shutes and Ladders. Whoever had the lowest stack won the hand, no matter what the cards were. To his credit, Layne Flack would never discuss a deal even when he could have locked up an extra $100,000 over 2nd place money with a simple "yes." Tom Jacobs played brilliantly. At one point Tom was down to $40,000 facing mountainous stacks all around him. Now guaranteed $156,160, Jacobs wanted that which had slipped from his grasp so many times before…that gold bracelet. Oh, and $303,880. It was not meant to be for Tom Jacobs again this day. Here was a case where both players deserved to win, neither deserved to lose. When the two started heads up play, they were almost even in chips with Flack having a very slight lead. It was that way again when the final hand that ended a 25 hour, two day poker marathon came down. Layne Flack got exactly what he was praying for. The flop came with a King. Flack needed Jacobs to have a King and go all-in for his entire $440k. Jacobs did have a King and he did go all-in. Layne Flack called within a second and flipped over K Q for the top two pair on the flop. Tom Jacobs know he'd been had and disgustedly showed his K 10. Layne Flack now has two well-deserved WSOP gold bracelets, Tom Jacobs still has an undeserved none.