Another week, another bit of history at the 2013 World Series of Poker. Just days after Dana Castenda added her name to the short list of women to ever win a bracelet in an open event at the WSOP, Loni Harwood did the same, winning Event #60, the final $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event of the festival. The 23-year old Harwood beat out Yongshuo Zheng heads-up to win the $609,017 first prize.
Arguably more impressive and significant than this single victory has been Harwood’s record for this year’s World Series. She has cashed in six bracelet events, all with buy-ins of either $1,500 or $1,000, meaning they all had very large fields. Not only that, but this was her third final table, an accomplishment only three other players were able to pull off this summer. She ties the women’s final table record, originally set by Cyndy Violette in 2005 (Violette just missed out on a bracelet that year, finishing second once and seventh twice, though she does own a WSOP bracelet). Did we mention that this was just her second WSOP and she didn’t even cash last year?
Harwood didn’t totally come out of nowhere, though. She is what is affectionately known as a WSOP Circuit “grinder,” someone who plays in a lot of lower buy-in Circuit events, making small cashes here and there. She has won two gold rings on the Circuit, the first (2012 Palm Beach Kennel Club) being especially notable because she top three finishes were all female.
Harwood’s successful 2013 World Series of Poker also means she is in the running for WSOP Player of the Year (POY). The win in Event #60 catapulted her up the standings, putting her in third place. Her 487.20 points put her behind $50,000 Poker Players Championship winner Matthew Ashton (649.75) and Daniel Negreanu (598.34). Because of her move up the leaderboard, the natural question arose about the possibility of her playing in the World Series of Poker Europe to try to earn enough points to take the POY title, provided she doesn’t all but nail it down by winning the Main Event. When asked by WSOP officials after her win, Harwood laughed and said, “I’m going to win the Main Event.”
Sunday’s play began with just fifteen players remaining in the tournament and when Cormac Ohiggins was eliminated in 10th place, Harwood had officially made her third final table. She was the short stack, though, with just 700,000 chips. In less than an hour and a half, though, she doubled twice with pocket Aces to jump into the chip lead. In her own words, “It was very tough in the beginning. I was in some bad spots where I was flipping, and was lucky to hold.”
When she made it to heads-up, Harwood had a sizeable chip lead over Zheng, 8.8 million to 2.6 million. Not counting the 60-minute dinner break, the match lasted almost two hours and while Zheng looked like he might mount a comeback on a couple occasions, he never really posed a threat to Harwood.
On the final hand, Zheng raised pre-flop to 215,000 and Harwood called, bringing on a flop of J♣-K♥-8♠. Harwood check-called a 250,000 chip bet by Zheng and both players checked the J♥ on the turn. So, while the pot was at about a million chips, it certainly didn’t look like it was going to be the championship hand. Harwood woke up when the T♠ was dealt on the river, tossing out a bet of 600,000 chips. Zheng then quickly moved all-in and Harwood insta-called. As it turned out, she was slowplaying and he had hit what he thought was his bingo card on the river. The hands: Harwood held J♦-T♦ for turned trips and a rivered full house while Zheng had A♠-Q♦ in the hole, good for broadway on the river. That cooler of a final card eliminated Zheng and gave Loni Harwood her first WSOP bracelet.
2013 World Series of Poker Event #60: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em – Final Table Results
1. Loni Harwood – $609,017
2. Yongshuo Zheng – $378,607
3. Mika Paasonen – $267,978
4. Yngve Steen – $193,265
5. Asi Moshe – $141,124
6. Daniel Cascado – $104,282
7. Cy Williams – $78,006
8. Bijon Notash – $59,036
9. Hiren Patel – $45,212
