Poker Tournament Results

LA Poker Classic - WPT Season 2

Massoud Setayesh

Tournament Report

SMALL TOURNAMENT PLAYER WINS NO-LIMIT WITH JUST 4-2 A four-deuce was the improbable key hand that brought victory to Massoud Setayesh in the fifth event of LAPC XIII, $500 no-limit hold'em. Since only one stack of $1,000 chips separated him from Van Pham when they got heads-up, and since most of the prize money had been locked up in an earlier five-way chip count deal, they agreed to simply keep going all in until one player had all the chips. On the first deal, Setayesh had 4-2 to Pham's Q-10. The flop was K-10-2. A jack turned. Then, as a crowd of Setayesh's friends and backers roared, a third deuce hit the river. Pham doubled his remaining stack on the next deal, but on the third showdown hand, Satayesh, with 10-7, won with a straight on a board of 8-9-3-J-A. Setayesh, with a background in garment manufacturing and smog-check businesses, has been playing full time for three years, specializing in small-limit daily tournaments. This is his first major tournament win, and a completely unexpected one after dropping down to $600 midway through. Last year he placed fourth in a field of 336 at an LAPC limit hold'em event. Van Pham, a familiar face on the tournament trail, has numerous cash-ins and titles to his credit, including a pot-limit hold'em win at Commerce's California State Poker Championship last year. Until the final table, the biggest pot of the night by far came at the fourth table. Two players held a queen when two ladies hit the flop. Both went all in. Emiliano Calitis gambled with a flush draw, hit it, busted the two, along with a third, short-chipped player who was all in with pocket eights, and hauled in a pot of about $90,000. The final table started with $500 antes, $1,500-$3,000 blinds, and fast action. On the first hand, Barbara Enright moved in for $28,000 with A-K. Ricardo Festejo called with A-J suited. Big slick held up, and Festejo was down to $1,000. One hand later, T. Le raised to $8,000 and Pham put him in for the rest of his $43,500. A classic match-up: Q-Q for Le, A-K for Pham. An ace flopped and nine were left. On the next hand, Festejo, two away from the blind, decided to go with his suited Q-2 for his last thou. No contest: grocery worker Paul Jones had pocket kings and flopped a set. After 16 minutes the blinds became $2,000-$4,000. Pham, who arrived at the final table way ahead of everybody else with $124,000, was playing his usual very aggressive game, and by hand 13 had climbed to about 200k. Two hands later, Steve Wood knocked out Jones, who tried an all-in steal from the small blind with 5h-3h. Wood, in the big blind, took Jones to the woodshed by calling with Qd-2d. Enright, meanwhile, had dipped down to about $35,000 and, feeling she had to make a move, did so with pocket 7s. Calitis called with A-K and eliminated her by flopping an ace. Enright, a three-bracelet holder and the only woman to make the final table at the WSOP's championship event, is one of the tournament bounty "experts" for Royal Vegas Poker, an online site. By the time blinds went to $3,000-$6,000 with $1,000 antes, Pham had climbed to $245,000. Dung Le then relieved him of about $80,000. He raised with pocket 6s, and Pham moved in with A-10. The 6s won and now only a few thousand separated them. Soon after, Setayesh, betting all in for $68,000 with A-9, was in bad shape against Le's A-Q, but caught a nine on the river to survive and become a threat. Finishing sixth was Carlos Fuentes of Spain when his pocket treys couldn't overcome Pham's two nines. The count now stood at: Pham, 214k; Setayesh, 107k; Wood, 98k; Le, 80k; and Calitis, 49k. Play resumed after the chip count deal, and two hands later Le went out fifth, coming over the top and going all in when Pham made a small trap raise of 20k with A-K. Le was way behind with K-10 and left for dead on a flop of A-K-6. Pham now had $335,000 of the $548,000 in play. Wood, a dealer at Agua Caliente in Palm Springs, was dealt out of the tournament when he raised with J-8 and Calitis put him in with As-Qs, and then put him out when a queen flopped. Two hands later Pham took a big hit, losing over 100k and the lead after Setayesh called his all-in bet with the better hand, A-6 to Q-J, and hit two more 6s. As blinds went to 5k-10k with 2k antes, Setayesh still held the lead with 245k to 182 for Pham and 121k for Calitis. Pham then regained the lead by knocking out Calitis. When Calitis bet 40k with Q-J, Pham bet all in holding A-4 and Calitis saw him for his last 115k. A board of 8-9-2-7-8 changed nothing, and now the match was heads-up. Pham now proposed the showdown hands deal and Setayesh agreed. It was all but over when Setayesh took the first match with trip sixes, and two hands later it was. --Max Shapiro