In what was a crowded Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino tournament poker room(s) on Saturday, two tournaments at the 2015 World Series of Poker were supposed to play down to their champions. While Nick Petrangelo was able to take the Shootout gold, Jacob Dahl and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Robert Mizrachi were playing to a stalemate in the Omaha Hi/Lo event.
Event #3 – $1500 Omaha Hi/Lo Eights or Better
It almost seemed as if there would be a fourth day of action in this tournament, even from the start of Day 3 that was supposed to be its conclusion. With 49 runners still in the 918 player field on Saturday, the split-pot nature of Hi/Lo games almost guaranteed that the tournament would run well into Sunday morning at the least. Everyone was looking to knock Kelly Vandemheen from the top of the mountain as several pros, including Eric Crain, Robert Mizrachi and veteran pro Don Zewin, were looking to take up that fight.
The molasses-like slow pace of the day was seen in how slowly the players fell. Crain and Vandemheen would clash in a hand nearly three hours after the start of action on Day 3 that saw Crain depart the tournament, but only in 29th place. Almost an hour later, pro grinder Raymond Davis would take the long walk in 26th place, showing the glacial pace of a split-pot tournament. This would continue throughout the evening as the players attempted to finish off the tournament.
It wasn’t until almost 11PM (Vegas time) that the official final table was determined with Andrew Yeh’s elimination at the hands of Thomas Taylor, with Taylor scoring a straight over Yeh’s two pair on a high board. At this point, Mizrachi had surged into a significant lead over Nguyen Tran, but another two hours of play would only see Taylor, Bruce Levitt and (surprisingly) Tran (who never got any traction at the final table) depart the battle. As the clock approached 1AM, it was becoming evident that the tournament would have to be paused, but how many players would be left to take part in the action was the question.
Once Zewin was eliminated from the tournament in third place, it was down to Dahl and Mizrachi for the title. Although WSOP curfew rules suggested that the tournament would be paused, the Tournament Director in charge (presumably in coordination with the players) decided to try to play out the final table. Mizrachi would start the heads up match with a 2:1 lead on Dahl, but Dahl was able to work that lead down to only 500K in chips within an hour of the resumption of the event. By the time the 11th level of play was in the books for the day, Dahl had moved into the lead (4.1 million to Mizrachi’s 2.8 million) when the TD decided to call it a night.
After a bit of rest, Dahl and Mizrachi will return to the Amazon Room at 3PM to (eventually) decide the champion of this Omaha Hi/Lo struggle. Will Mizrachi take his third bracelet? Can Dahl capture his first? Answers will be revealed this afternoon in “The Mothership.”
Event #4 – $3000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout
The ten players who returned to the felt on Saturday for the finale of the $3000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout event truly brought some star power to the table. Three of the players – Loni Harwood, Leo Wolpert and Brian Lemke – already held WSOP bracelets and two, Andreas Hoivold and David Peters, both have accumulated over $1 million each in tournament winnings. But the eyes of the railbirds were all locked on actor/poker player James Woods, who was looking to make a rare strike for Hollywood in winning a WSOP bracelet.
With only 30K in chips separating the players (Nick Petrangelo was technically the leader with 472,000 in chips), it was expected that there would be a “feeling out” process to the start of the final day of play (also having an effect was the fact that the first elimination would not get credit for an official WSOP final table finish), but the exact opposite was true. Woods was active in the first few hands and, on Hand 7, Peters would double through Harwood to put Harwood with an extremely short stack. Although she would fight valiantly to try to get back in the game, Harwood wouldn’t recover from that loss, departing the table in tenth place.
Now at the official WSOP final table with Peters holding the lead, the action ramped up again. Jason Les would pick off a bluff from Woods (calling a river bet from Woods on a 9-7-2-10-A rainbow board with only a 9-4 against Woods’ 6-5), sending Woods’ stack to 393K. Peters remained active against the opposition, knocking off Wolpert in ninth place and Lemke in eighth to become the first player to crack the million chip mark in the tournament.
Woods was another player that, after his bluff failed against Les failed, couldn’t seem to find his rhythm in the game. On Hand 80, Peters upped the betting and Woods (out of the blinds) moved his stack to the center. With his massive stack, Peters made the call and turned up an off suit K-Q for battle against Woods’ pocket deuces. The A-6-3 flop wasn’t a bad one for Woods, but the King on the turn was devastating. When a deuce failed to appear on the river, Woods was out in seventh place and Peters had claimed the first three official knockouts of the final table.
Although Peters held a nice lead, there were contenders that rose against him. Petrangelo was the first to join him over the million chip mark and, as Peters began to drop down the ladder a bit, Les also joined the fight. Peters couldn’t hold these two players off, eventually falling in third place at the hands of Les, as Petrangelo and Les moved to heads up play virtually even in chips (25K separation).
After a break for dinner, Petrangelo and Les began the final battle for the WSOP bracelet. Within 16 hands of action, Petrangelo had opened up more than a 2:1 lead over Les, but a double up by Les on Hand 160 on the final hand of Level 10 put him in the lead. Les would then work his way out to a nice lead before Petrangelo started grinding away at his stack. On Hand 183, Petrangelo would take down a million-plus chip pot to retake the lead and never relinquish it.
Whittling Les down to a “push or fold” chip stack, Petrangelo put the pressure on during the final hand by removing one of Les’ options in moving in his own stack. Les agonized over the decision for a bit before calling off his stack and turning up a decent Q-10 off suit. Petrangelo had the goods with his K-J off suit, however, and once the six high board came down, Petrangelo’s King played over Les’ Queen and Petrangelo was crowned the Shootout champion.
1. Nick Petrangelo, $201,812
2. Jason Les, $124,696
3. David Peters, $91,575
4. Jeffrey Griffiths, $67,788
5. Derek Bowers, $50,576
6. Andreas Hoivold, $38,039
7. James Woods, $28,832
8. Brian Lemke, $22,021
9. Leo Wolpert, $16,951
10. Loni Harwood, $13,150*
* – not an official WSOP final table finish
