John Phan blindly goes all in and earns his first bracelet at 2008 WSOP
With established poker pro’s being the ones to claim bracelet after the bracelet at the 2008 WSOP, the legend that is whispered in the hallways, is that this is the “Year of the Pro.” And the latest win of John Phan, at Event #29 $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em just fuels those speculations further. Although this is Phan’s first WSOP Bracelet, he is a well-reputed poker professional; who has an impressive 14 first place finishes at major poker events and close to four million dollars in poker earnings to date. For this particular event, Phan walked away with a grande $434,789 first prize! A number of other well-established poker pro’s also claimed their first bracelets this year, including Erik Lindgren and David Singer.
But, Phan’s victory, does not come without its own unique little story. With only one lady, Thuyen Doan at the final table, the seating arrangements and chip count for the final stages of the tournament were as follows:
Seat 1: Sebastian Segovia (Guatemala) — 128,500
Seat 2: Alex Bolotin (Brooklyn, New York) — 534,000
Seat 3: David Singer (Las Vegas, Nevada) — 334,000
Seat 4: Thuy Doan (Williamsburg, Virginia) — 369,500
Seat 5: John Phan (Stockton, California) — 396,500
Seat 6: Matt Vengrin (Red Hook, New York) — 1,007,500
Seat 7: Stewart Newman (Coral Gables, Florida) — 398,000
Seat 8: Johnny Neckar (Madison, Wisconsin) — 796,000
Seat 9: Tony Dunst (Melbourne, Australia) — 333,000
The first eliminations occurred relatively quickly. But when Phan and Neckar finally outplayed the rest and went heads-up, it turned into a grueling 6-hours marathon of heads-up play. Starting out, John Phan had a slight chiplead, with his 2,345,000 against the 1,950,000 of Johnny Neckar. Eventually, to the astonishment of all onlookers from the rail, both players clearly had enough and agreed to play their hands blind and go all in!
Their first blind hand brought Phan a and a for Neckar. With both players of course as agreed all in pre-flop, the board flipped , in Neckar’s advantage, who doubled through Phan and took the chip lead.
On the hand after that, the two players continued the insanity and blindly shoved in pre-flop again, agreeing to not show their cards until the river. The board brought . Phan revealed a , after which Neckar showed a . Neckar then flipped a , before Phan turned over the , doubling through Neckar with his better kicker.
By now, Phan had a huge chip lead. But both players persisted and pushed all in blind once again! The board showed . Phan turned a , and Neckar revealed the . Phan then flipped a , after which Neckar turned over a for pocket fours and a double-up.
From here on forward, the players reverted to normal play again, but it only took a few minutes before Phan finally sent Neckar to the rail. Phan raised pre-flop from the button with , after which Neckar moved all in over the top. Phan called, and Neckar tabled . The flop brought no luck to Neckar, with , also not the turn, with the . But when the board rivered an , it was finally over for him. Neckar nevertheless collected an impressive $277,452 for his excellent second place finish. The rest of the players at the final table, finished as follows:
3rd- Matt Vengrin with ($167,973
4th- Alex Bolotin with $137,343
5th- David Singer with $112,641
6th- Stewart Newman with $88,927
7th- the lady Thyuen Doan with ($69,165
8th- Australian online star Tony “Bond18″ Dunst; with $54,344
9th- Sebastian Segovia; with $39,523.
For all the relevant updated news and snippets about the 2008 WSOP, keep your eye on this space.
