The 2012 World Series of Poker handed out two more bracelets on Friday, with one of the tournaments extended one day (due to the late finish early Friday morning) and the second event handing out one of the larger first place prizes to this point of the 2012 WSOP.
Event #37 – $2500 Eight Game Mixed
After playing until 4AM Friday morning without deciding a champion, two men – chip leader Greg “FBT” Mueller and David “ODB” Baker – came back on Friday afternoon to settle the score in Event #37. While it was thought that it would be a quick battle, considering Mueller’s nearly 4:1 chip advantage, it actually turned out to be one of the more entertaining heads up matches of the 2012 WSOP.
After finishing off a couple of hands of Seven Card Stud, the duo went onto Omaha Hi/Lo, where Baker would get a double up against Mueller to cut into the massive chip advantage. Baker would also win the second Omaha Hi/Lo hand, which seemed to catapult him into overdrive. He evened the match up in Stud Hi/Lo and suddenly the battle was on.
In Triple Draw Lowball, Baker would seize a lead that he wouldn’t relinquish. The blinds climbing, Baker seemed to catch the cards he needed while Mueller would be bereft of the necessary cards to go to battle. In Stud, Baker stretched his lead out to a 3:1 advantage and now it was Mueller who was in danger of being eliminated.
Mueller valiantly fought on, however, making some moves in Omaha Hi/Lo to bring himself within 500K in chips to Baker, but that would be as close as he would get. Razz would be the destruction of “FBT” as he missed on a hand that would have pushed him into the lead. The final hand was also a Razz winner for Baker as he made a 6-5-3-2-A that Mueller couldn’t best, crowning Baker as the champion of the Eight Game Mixed event.
1. David Baker (Katy, TX), $271,312
2. Greg Mueller (Vancouver, British Columbia), $167,637
3. Kevin Calenzo (New Hartford, NY), $106,564
4. Joseph Couden (Reynoldsburg, OH), $76,841
5. Donnacha O’Dea (Dublin, Ireland), $56,277
6. Konstantin Puchkov (Moscow, Russia), $41,844
7. Christopher McHugh (Las Vegas, NV), $31,578
8. Chris Viox (Glen Carbon, IL), $24,188
This might be the first time in WSOP history that the same name has won two tournaments but it has been two different men. Last weekend, David “Bakes” Baker won the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship and, with David “ODB” (for “original David Baker”) Baker taking down this title, it makes for a unique moment in WSOP history.
Event #38 – $1500 No Limit Hold’em
The massive 2534 player field had been chopped down to the final 21 men when Event #38 took to the Amazon Room on Friday afternoon to determine its champion. Leading the way was Jeffrey Manza’s 1.3 million in chips, but threats from David “The Dragon” Pham, Tyler Patterson, Scott Clements and Blake Cahail were looming on the horizon.
Within a half an hour of the start of the final day of play, the field had been winnowed down to just two tables with Bastian Fisher, Jia Liu and Jason Lester leaving the felt, with Lester’s elimination particularly cruel. In a hand against Patterson, Lester saw a 5-2-4 monochrome flop (all spades) and got his chips to the center against Patterson. Lester tossed up his pocket tens (with a spade) only to see Patterson unveil a 6-3 (no spades) for the flopped straight. Lester’s stack was decimated (once the board came with no more spades) and he would drop a few hands later.
Over the next three hours, the final table would be determined. Pham, Theo Tran and Dung Nguyen were particularly active over this time, pushing their stacks skyward, and it was Tran who would bring the final nine members to determine the champion following the elimination of Clements in tenth place. Even with that elimination, Tran (1.91 million) could only claim second place behind the monster stack of Nguyen (3.27 million).
Nguyen would wield that stack like a samurai sword as he tore through the final table. He would eliminate Manza in eighth place, getting Manza to commit his chips holding K-10 on a ten high board when Nguyen was sitting on pocket Queens, then would knock off Kristijonas Andrulis in sixth to break the six million mark in chips. By the time dinner came, Nguyen’s stack was larger than his four opponents’ stacks put together.
Following the dinner break, Nguyen was content to let the other members of the table see who would face him for the bracelet. For a bit it looked like that contender would be Bahman Jahanguiri (who eliminated Pham in fifth place), but he would double up Tran to push him close to the three million chip mark. Jahanguiri wouldn’t go away, however, bumping WSOP bracelet holder Blair Hinkle out in fourth to bring the table to three handed play.
Nguyen would knock off Jahanguiri in third place to go to battle against Tran for the title. Holding almost a 3:1 edge, Nguyen would never let Tran get within sniffing distance of the chip lead. On the final hand, Tran moved all in for roughly two million in chips with Big Slick and Nguyen made the call with a slightly less impressive Q-10 off suit. After an 8-4-3 flop kept Tran in the lead, a ten on the turn would seal his fate, giving Nguyen the lead. After the river blanked, Dung Nguyen was the latest $1500 No Limit Hold’em champion at the 2012 WSOP.
1. Dung Nguyen (Wichita, KS), $607,200
2. Theo Tran (Las Vegas, NV), $377,565
3. Bahman Jahanguiri (Plano, TX), $267,241
4. Blair Hinkle (Weatherby Lake, MO), $192,734
5. David Pham (Cerritos, CA), $140,736
6. Kristijonas Andrulis (Kedainiai, Lithuania), $103,995
7. Zachary Korik (New York, NY), $77,791
8. Jeffrey Manza (Naperville, IL), $58,874
9. Tyler Patterson (Everett, WA), $45,087
