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15-Way Chop in Play-Off
Well, what else is new? For the fourth time at Legends 2004, there was no final table action as the 15 (count ‘em 15) finalists in tonight’s Last Chance points play-off agreed to a chip-count deal chop. Previously, there were two 10-way chops and another for 13 ways. But this chop sets a world’s record. I have it on good authority that the Bicycle Casino is now considering changing its name to The Chop House.
“Misleading” is how the somewhat embarrassed winner, Steve Tourouk, put it after placing first in the 47-entrant event. He said he would have preferred to play, but didn’t want “28 eyeballs staring at me” if he nixed the deal. Also, since he had the equivalent of third place locked up, he was satisfied. Tourouk is in sales with an equipment financing and leasing company and has been playing tournaments only since January. The night before he came in fourth in the fifth and final Last Chance event. However, he actually did much better than that, because when a four-way chip count deal was made for all but 10 percent, he was close behind the chip leader and eventual winner, Stephen Savioli, a soldier on leave from the Presidio in Monterrey.
Param Gill, who finished seventh, also participated in the 13-way deal and was reported at that time to have held a knife to the throat of a lone holdout. This time everyone quickly agreed. Gill said he was short-chipped and would have been the holdout this time, but he managed to double up at the end.
Officially, only nine places were paid. But here is the complete chip count listing of the 15. Tourouk had $4,050 worth of chips for first place. Brent Phillips had $3,525 for second. James “Major” Polk took third with $3,425. Jacky Lee finished fourth with $3,350. Ed Padilla was fifth with $2,650. Robert Campbell had $2,150 in chips and was sixth. Next was Gill, seventh with $2,000. Savioli finished eighth with $1,925. Can Vu, with $1,650, was ninth.
Rounding out the field was Antonio Abesamis, 10th with $1,600; Grady Talbot, 11th with $1,400; Ameer Khan, 12th with $1,375; Romeo Pueblo, 13th with $400; Jojo Gabriel, 14th with $375; and John Liu, 15th with $150.
While this 15-way deal replaces the 13-way chop in the Guinness Book of Records, there were plenty of other highlights to reflect on for this 10th annual Legends of Poker. No doubt the most outstanding was the 667 entrants for the Championship/World Poker Tour event. This was well over double the total from last year for this $5,000 no-limit tournament, and it set an all-time record for the WPT. The prize pool was an astonishing $3,335,000 and first place paid $1,173,260 plus a $25,000 seat in next year’s Bellagio/WPT event.
Fittingly, the winner was the 70-something poker legend, Doyle Brunson. Brunson, who has nine World Series of Poker bracelets and two championships, put on a masterful demonstration of poker skill as he overcame a severe heads-up chip disadvantage and scored a memorable victory.
But while Brunson has been playing the game for 50 years, it was startling to see how many events were captured by others who had been playing tournaments for such a short time. For example, the first open event, $100 limit hold’em drew a door-busting 690 entrants. It was won by Raj Patel, an electrical engineer, who started playing poker only four months before and was entering only his second tournament. Event #21, $500 no-limit hold’em, was taken by Yubin Tao, a commercial real estate broker who only started playing tournaments last November.
Then there were the ladies events. The Ladies Poker Party, which drew 353 players, was won by Cuiling “Lavinna” Zhang who had been playing low-limit poker for only five months. This was her second tournament ever and her first no-limit event. Besides first-place prize money, she also won a seat in the WPT Ladies Night Out invitational, where she finished second. And the winner of that one, Isabelle Mercier of Canada, only started playing professionally in January, yet scored a convincing win over some far more experienced pros.
This influx of new blood is more convincing testimony to the explosive growth of poker. It was also interesting to note that 19 of the events this year were devoted to no-limit hold’em which is increasingly becoming the game of choice at tournaments. Players, interviewed after winning one of these events, almost invariably said that he or she preferred no-limit because it gave them so much more opportunity to read opponents, make moves and in general employ a much higher level of skill than in limit, where you can only force your opponent to call one additional bet.
That wraps up an exciting Legends 2004. Next up: Big Poker Oktober kicking off on September 30. –Max Shapiro
BIOGRAPHY
Stephen Tourouk has been in sales with Capital Network, an equipment financing/leasing firm, for five years. He’s been playing poker only a couple of years, and just in house games until fairly recently. Early this year he took a shot at a satellite and won a seat in Commerce’s LAPC $10,000 championship. He didn’t last long after he pushed in with top pair 10s and got beaten by a runner-runner flush. Since then he’s played in occasional small tournaments at the Bike and Commerce.
In last night’s event, where he finished fourth, he said he played well. But after a four-way chop for almost all the money, he felt he played over-aggressively and recklessly and blew off chips. Tourouk says he plays only no-limit, which he loves. “I don’t like limit because I don’t want to chase, and don’t want players chasing after me, either.” Tonight he said he had a good run of luck which left him the chip leader when the points play-off suddenly ended. Does he expect to be playing more tournaments now? “Absolutely,” he declared.
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