| Shock and Awe Wilkins
This wasn't a poker tournament, it was a train wreck, an earthquake, a nuclear explosion. A poker player named Andrey Wilkins kept coming up with the most unbelievable series of "shock and awe" hands that totally devastated the final table as he ran off with a one-sided win in the 14th event of Legends of Poker 2003, $300 limit hold'em. Wilkins, returning to tournaments after a three-year hiatus to regain his focus, started with a very big lead of $43,500 and went up like a rocket from there.
With 17:46 remaining, final table starting stakes were $1,000-$1,500 blinds and $1,500-$3,000 limits. Since this meant that six of the 10 players had only enough chips for between three and six bet big bets, there figured to be some early casualties.
The first was Hon Le. On the sixth hand he had pocket kings and lost most of his chips when Avner Levy, with A-K, flopped an ace. As the Kamikaze Kid smacked the table in frustration, the first (and as it turned out, the last) of Levy's trademark "Send to Papa!" shrieks split the air. Hon Le lost his remaining chips in the big blind on the next hand when his king-high went nowhere. Four hands later, with limits at 2-4k, former Vegas craps dealer Ed Sloman crapped out when he went all in with A-Q and lost to Minh Nguyen's A-5 when a 5-7-3 flopped.
Wilkins was now to deliver several shocking body blows that pretty much destroyed both the chips and morale of the other players. On hand 20, Minh Nguyen was ecstatic when a river queen gave him a set. But then, to his anguish, he discovered that he had been virtually drawing dead after the flop, which had given Wilkins a nut spade flush. Minh's cards came close to leaving the table when he shoved them back to the dealer.
On the very next hand, Jimmy Stewart, a consultant, bet all in with pocket sevens when the flop came 9-9-J. Wilkins turned his hand up. He had flopped quad nines! He had now run his chip count up to somewhere in the 90k range.
(On hand 24, Sang Houangvanh finished in seventh place when he went in with A-7 and Eugene Tito, with A-K, flopped trip kings. But that's just a sideline to the real story, so let's get on with it.)
On hand 27, Levy kept betting with the best hand, A-J and Wilkins kept calling with Kd-2d until, to Levy's disbelief, Wilkins made a flush on the river.
On hand 33, Levy three-bet the pot pre-flop, this time confidently holding pocket aces. The flop was Q-Q-J. Levy bet the flop, then the turn, and then Wilkins raised to put him in for two more chips. Wilkins had pocket jacks. He had flopped a full house! Five players were now left.
"Wow! You're amazing!" Tito raved, echoing the sentiments of the table and spectators. Wilkins, totally focused, refusing to be diverted or distracted, did not respond or move a muscle. Throughout the final table, he had been so concentrated, so zeroed-in, that he made a player as remarkably focused as Phil Ivey seem like a hyperactive child by comparison.
The chip count now stood: Minh Nguyen, $28,000; Tito, $22,500; Rocky Enciso, $16,000; and Kaitlyn Nguyen, $13,500. Oh, yes, Wilkins had $138,000.
Limits now went to $3,000-$6,000, which gave the four short-stacked players very little room to maneuver. On hand 37, with a board of K-7-4-9, Kaitlyn Nguyen, with A-9, had second pair with an ace kicker. Enciso bet with A-K, she raised all in and finished fifth.
The three trailing players now threw up a white flag and accepted a $3,000 off-the-top offer from Wilkins, and the one-sided contest was officially over. -Max Shapiro
BIOGRAPHY
Wilkins, 38, has been playing poker seriously for about eight years. He had been playing a lot of tournaments and had a couple of modest wins at Hollywood Park and two more at Crystal Park in hold'em, his exclusive game. Later, dissatisfied with his performance, he abandoned tournaments for three years in an effort to get his focus back and improve his performance, and stuck to $4-8 and $6-$12 hold'em games. He only started playing tournaments again three weeks ago, and this was just his third event since returning.
In this event, determined to only play very good starting hands, coming in with hands such as Q-J suited at a minimum, playing as well as he could, he managed to build his chips gradually. Even when he was getting hit by lightning, he refused to change gears and play hands he knew he shouldn’t be going with. "I wouldn't let those hands throw me off," he said.
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