Last night I got to do something I have always wanted to do. No, not play on the Final Table (maybe next time, sad face). But I got to cover Final Table action as a reporter! My wife of course was thrilled when I told her why I would be leaving her at home alone with my three daughters late on a school night. So I could “live tweet” updates and write a blog post about it. She especially loved the part about not getting paid to do this.
Anyway, I arrived at House of Kings at around 8pm when play was down to 16 players on two tables. 41 players had qualified for yesterday’s Day 2 final and play began at 3pm at 1k/2k blinds, dropping two levels from where play left off for qualifiers. There was also one notable big difference from this tournament’s structure from past HOK tournaments. There was no option for an add-on to start the final day. This was welcomed with overwhelming support by the players, as every single tournament player I asked said it was a good thing. For me, it wasn’t so much that there was a dealer appreciation add-on, but the size of the add-on. You were basically stupid not to buy it because of how many chips you were being offered. So you know your priced in for a larger amount with add-on money that doesn’t go to the prize pool. I’m all for taking care of our dealers, but maybe it can done in away that doesn’t take away the advantage from the chip leaders, as the final day add-ons have been having everyone start with plenty of big blinds (BBs).
Noticeable names to start the day included: King Kong Kelly starting the day off in 2nd position with 453k chips, Troy Bolata in third with 400,500, wild and fun PLO cash player Paul Johnson started in 10th. El Paso’s best, Mauricio Solano was starting from 30th position with HOK owner Adriana Sanabria aka Boss Lady, right behind in 31st. El Paso tournament specialist who I swear plays and cashes in every single poker tournament offered by El Paso card clubs, Ben Cervantes Sr started in 36th.
I am sure I missed a lot of the fun, but I caught enough interesting action from 16 players down to the tournament’s conclusion to share with you. You can find the live tweets under my twitter handle @elpasopokerblog or under #hok23k.
At this point, with 16 players left, about half the players were under 10BBs and it seemed each table had a player all-in preflop every hand. Mostly blinds were being stolen, but every time there was an all-in and call, “all-in win every time, baby!” Until of course someone with AA decided to push. Troy called Jonathon Delgado’s Pocket Rockets with Pocket 10s, preflop. Players’ hole cards were face up and the flop came with the Ace of clubs erasing hope that Troy could win this pot. Troy was certainly coming to terms with the fact he was now short stacked and it would be a long shot to build it back up to reach the final table. But wait! What’s this? Another club on the turn. That’s three clubs on the board, and Troy has the 10 of clubs! Could it be? Yes! The river comes a club giving Troy a flush to eliminate Delgado in 15th place, and giving Troy a healthy stack to cruise to the final table. Delgado was a good sport about it saying, that’s poker and he’s happy he made it that far because it was his first big tournament.
A rare happening caused a moment of brief confusion and there was a need to check the cameras for verification. When down to 12 players, 2 players went out at the same time, 1 player from each table and it was unknown which player had the larger stack. This was important because there was a pay jump from 12th place to 11th place. What happens when there is a simultaneous elimination is that the player with the larger stack going into that last hand will receive the bigger payout. I don’t blame the dealers for not counting the chips because it was obvious the all-ins were covered. It would be an impressive practice for the tournament director to have dealers conscious of hand-to-hand moments after the payout bubble has burst. But luckily HOK has the technology to remedy these types of situations and everything was quickly squared away, and the decision was made to start the final table 10 handed instead of 9.
The table began with “all-in or nothing” type of play. Many went through to steal the blinds, but there were seven “all-in and calls” with the all-in player surviving every time. And then the key hand of the final table happened. Players fold around to David who is on the button and raises to 200k (BB is 50k). SB gets out of the way and Paul calls from the big blind. Flop comes 7-5-K with two clubs and a spade. Paul leads out with a near pot size bet of 400k. David doesn’t take long to think and shoves it all in for a total of 910k.
Paul gives a slight hesitation but quickly finds a call. David turns over KJ showing top pair with a club. Paul turns over 6-8 of diamonds for an open ended straight draw. The turn was a harmless 3, but the river came a 9 completing the straight and making David the first elimination from the Final Table, while also securing a massive chip lead for Paul over the other players.
While the fact that Boss Lady being on the final table kept being pointed out in jest by her staff as some sort of amazing feat, her play was pretty stealth, yet effective. She pretty much stayed out of the action except to make a few calls on some all in short stacks, eliminating them while building a healthy stack and taking a commanding 2nd position in chips.
The final elimination came as a cooler to Ben, who had been in what seemed like 100 preflop all-ins, both as the all-in player and as the caller. Short stacked, Ben once again pushed all-in and was called by Boss Lady who quickly showed KK. Ben’s face grew with disappointment as he showed QQ. The board ran out all blanks, and Ben was out in third place taking a cool $5k.
And now it was time for an epic heads up battle for the tournament championship. Paul had a significant lead, but not so much that one key hand could put Boss Lady in the driver’s seat.
But Paul and Adriana had different ideas and agreed to stop play, taking an ICM chop, with Paul taking home the championship trophy. The payout was scheduled for $12k up top and $7k for 2nd. But Paul agreed to $10,800, leaving $8,200 for Boss Lady’s 2nd place finish.
That was pretty disappointing from my spectators point of view. I think they should have both agreed to guarantee themselves $8500, and continued to play on for an additional $2k, and of course, the championship trophy. I can understand the players were tired and eager for it to end, but I think there were other factors involved. I have to assume Adriana being the owner of the hosting card club played into her decision. I believe she thought it was better for business to succumb to the player’s ask for a chop. She may have felt it would be a bad look to tell a customer no chop and insist on playing on for the top prize. For Paul, I don’t think it was about securing a higher payout, but instead about securing the trophy and the title of champion. I reached out to Adriana for comment but she was unable to return my messages at this time.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t care about the money,” revealed Paul in a postday interview via Messneger. “But what I really wanted was the trophy. People know me as a pretty loose PLO player who likes to gamble. It was good to show a different side of my play and I wanted to get this win for myself. Going forward, I think it will actually be fun to play more tournaments.”
During my conversation with Paul, I reminded him that players kept saying he was “running hot”, and I also asked him about the key hand that eliminated David. “I was lucky enough to build an early chip lead, and this allowed me to play suited connectors and other lose hands, and lucky for me the poker gods were letting me hit, plus I had reads on tight players that allowed me to steal from them. In the hand with David, he was sitting with 1.1 million to my almost 4 million chips. I was already in attack mode, and he raised to 150k (it was 200k total) and I put him on a big Ace, so I called with suited connectors, and the flop gave me a straight draw so I tested the waters with 400k and he made it 500k more so at the point it was a pretty easy call. David is a good player and would have been tough to beat after that, but I still would have had around 3 million in chips, and I think I still would have won.”
This was Paul’s biggest tournament cash, his 4th final table appearance, and his first tournament championship.
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