| Hunt Outlasts O/8 Field
“It was a total surprise that I won,” said Sacramento business owner Tom Hunt after capturing the 10th event of Legends of Poker 2003, $500 Omaha hi-lo. He said he struggled along through most of the event with only a few hundred in chips and didn’t start getting lucky until the late stages.
The real surprise, however, was that this tournament ever ended. Instead of Omaha 8 or better, it should have been called Omaha 8 hours or better. With a table full of cockroaches who couldn’t be killed, it took two hours just to eliminate the first player. As play progressed, there were countless all-ins, but lows kept hitting the board in odds-defying numbers that resulted in continuous split spots and escapes. In one memorable hand, for example, three players were all in, and all three made nut lows to get pieces of the pot.
When the players got to the final table, the blinds were still only $300-$600, with $600-$1,200 limits. With 45-minute rounds and a split-pot game, this portended a long final session, especially since the chips were fairly evenly distributed. By the time the next level kicked in 43 minutes later, only one player, Dong Kim, had even gone all in. With new limits of 1-2k and blinds of $500-$1,000, Kim was shortest-chipped with $5,500, while Luis Razo, a waiter, had the lead with 20k.
During this round, Hunt came up with the best hand of the night: a crème de la crème A-A-2-3 that turned into a nut low and aces full, at the expense of Dong Kim. Chan Kim, meanwhile, down to 2k, stoically sat with arms folded, folding hand after hand. He finally found something he liked, a suited A-3-7-10, then scooped by making both a flush and a full house on the river. Incredibly, by the time the $1,500-$3,000 level arrived, all 10 players, despite numerous all-ins, were still around.
“It’s like quicksand here,” observed Frankie O’Dell, winner of the prior day’s event, $500 no-limit hold’em. “Someone will be first to sink when he gets blinded off.” Finally, on hand 48, Dong Kim missed his A-2 low draw and sank against O’Dell’s A-A-7-10. Next, it took a nut low and nut flush by Dennis Waterman, to remove the next player, Benny Wan, who couldn’t hit his pocket aces.
Three hands later there was a double-header. One off the button, Razo raised all in for 2k with A-3-4-J. Michael Gutenplan, an attorney with two Omaha wins at Commerce, called with A-2-6-7. Then O’Dell, ranked #1 in this game by Card Player, re-raised with his last thousand holding Q-Q-J-10. When the board came 10-7-4-6-K, Gutenplan scooped with a nut low and two pair for high, leaving Razo in eighth place and O’Dell in seventh. Some 20 more hands went by before the next player departed. Waterman, complaining about getting “monster” hands that didn’t pan out, was in the small blind holding 2-2-3-Q. He went all in on a flop of 10-6-4, missed everything and lost to Gutenplan’s straight. Three hours had now gone by, and five players were still left.
But now things finally accelerated. Three hands later, Chi Cam couldn’t do anything with his A-A-3-6 and lost when Gutenplan made a flush. One hand after that Chan Kim pitted his K-K-J-10 against Hunt’s A-A-4-10 and finished fourth on a board of 8-2-3-
Q-7.
Hand 85 was the last one. Retired clinical counselor John Bradley went all in with A-2-5-K. He thought he had a low when the board came Q-10-7-5-A, but he was double-counterfeited, and Gutenplan finished him with a Broadway straight. Hunt now had $70,500 to Gutenplan’s $47,000, and the two agreed to a deal that ended the marathon.
--Max Shapiro
BIOGRAPHY
Tom Hunt is a recreational player who owns a residential window replacement business in Sacramento. He’s been playing poker since he was a kid, and moderate-sized tournaments for about five years. He likes Omaha hi-lo because he feels the game is “more enjoyable, more laughing, more hands, more muti-way pots.” By contrast, he feels a game like hold’em is too serious. Hunt has an Omaha/8 win at Lucky Chances and a second at Commerce.
His style of play, he says, is instinctual, rather than ABC waiting for aces or A-2. “It’s how I feel, how I feel about the other players.” Tonight he never had more than $700-$1,200 in chips most of the way through, and then started getting some “lucky breaks.” In any event, the win tonight is a vindication of sorts of his loss at Commerce on Father’s Day, when he somehow managed to blow a lead of 111-6k when he was heads-up.
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