In an impressive feat, Joe Tehan ran the table in the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Los Angeles finale, eliminating all seven of his opponents to pull in $725,000. Tehan’s claim to fame to this point was winning the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Mandalay Bay Poker Championship four years ago for $1 million.
On his daunting run through Wednesday’s final table, Tehan told PokerStars officials, “I ran really, really good today. I won a lot of coin flips. I won all of the hands that were 50-50. It feels great. I’m happy with the way I played.” He added, “This was a great experience. The turnouts at NAPT events have been getting bigger and bigger. I mean, this is a $5,000 tournament with over 700 players. I don’t play much outside of Vegas or LA, so to get a turnout like this in LA was good. I was excited to come down and play and I’m glad I did.”
Jake Toole was the first casualty of the final table. A little over an hour into play, Toole committed his chips with pocket jacks and ran up against Tehan’s A-Q. Tehan flopped an ace and never looked back, sending Toole away in eighth place for $60,000. Ninety minutes later, Tehan dispatched PokerStars sponsored pro Jason Mercier in seventh place in a race with pocket jacks against Mercier’s A-K. The board ran out five cards nine or lower and Mercier, donning his signature tan and brown sweater, was eliminated.
Moments later, former UB.com pro Michael Binger saw his NAPT LA title hopes dashed after running pocket tens into Tehan’s A-J. Once again, Tehan came out on the winning end of a race, this time turning an ace. No two-outer struck on the river and Binger picked up $114,000 for sixth place.
Tehan’s run-good continued. Team PokerStars Canada pro Anh Van Nguyen and Ray Henson were both all-in before the flop. Nguyen held A-Q, Henson held A-J, and Tehan had them both covered with K-5 of hearts. I bet you can figure out how this ends. The flop came 9-9-4, but a king on the turn propelled Tehan into the lead with kings-up. Tehan had shoved pre-flop and Nguyen and Henson called all-in for their tournament lives.
Al Grimes 3bet all-in pre-flop with 8-7 of spades and Tehan called the short stack with J-9. The flop of 10-7-3 gave Tehan a gutshot straight draw and a nine on the turn propelled the eventual winner into the lead once again with a pair. The river blanked for Grimes, whose third place finish in the NAPT LA Main Event was worth $250,000.
Tehan took a nearly 5:2 chip lead into heads-up play against Chris DeMaci, who had entered the final table as the pacesetter. On the final hand, DeMaci re-raised all-in on a flop of K-3-5 and showed K-4 for top pair. However, Tehan had him trumped with K-10, which held for the win. DeMaci picked up $440,000 for his second place finish and Tehan banked $725,000 along with a swank trophy. Here’s how the final table cashed out in Los Angeles at the Crystal Casino:
1: Joe Tehan – $725,000
2: Chris DeMaci – $440,000
3: Al Grimes – $250,000
4: Anh Van Nguyen – $195,000
5: Ray Henson – $145,000
6: Michael Binger – $114,000
7: Jason Mercier – $84,857
8: Jake Toole – $60,000
Meanwhile, the final table of the NAPT LA Bounty Shootout will begin at 2:00pm PT today. The field of nine features November Niner Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, David Williams, Pat Pezzin, Tom “Kingsofcards” Marchese, Clint Coffee, Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin, Justin Young, Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee, and Moshin “chicagocards1” Charania. The winner pockets $130,000 and the player who records the most number of bounties during the event will win a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Bounty Shootout buy-in.
Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest from NAPT LA.
Image courtesy PokerStars.