TEXAS
RANCHER ROPES IN WIN
IN MILLION-GUARANTEE EVENT
Andy Miller, an Abilene, Texas rancher/farmer
who also rides the tournament trail, corralled
an official $499,500 for winning the 10th
event of LAPC XIII, $1,500 limit hold'em.
He earned his pay in the million-dollar
guaranteed event because it was a wild
bronco ride that went 63 hands at the
three-handed level alone as the chips
sailed around the table with leads changing
hands and players going all in repeatedly.
This is the first major win for Miller,
who travels to many tournaments, but can
only can stay a few days each time. He
has a second at the Bellagio and a cash-in
at Foxwoods. Miller, who says he can play
any style, started out playing aggressively
at the final table but then tried to slow
down as chip counts changed erratically.
Holding the second chip lead with about
seven tables to go, he came to the final
table with an average count.
After
going to 4 a.m. the first day, players
at the last three tables returned at 11
a.m. the next day. When the final table
was reached, the leader, with 339k in
chips, was Tommy Hang, a mortgage broker
and part-time player. He held onto that
lead for much of the time with aggressive
raising, but eventually finished third
behind Hawaiian Gardens poker dealer Andy
Bui.
Limits
at the final table started at $6,000-$12,000,
with 44:17 left. The first casualty came
after limits went to $10,000-$20,000.
Pat Rao was all in from the small blind
with K-3, in bad shape against Miller's
K-9. A flopped 9 left Rao dead to two
running treys. Not surprisingly, he didn't
get them, and the retiree retired in 10th
place.
Danny
Dang, winner of event seven, pot-limit
hold'em, followed him out on the next
hand. Earlier, on the second hand, Dang
had gotten lucky when he was all in with
Q-Q to Miller's K-K and flopped a set.
This time, Miller evened the score. After
Dang called all in for $10,000 with Qh-Jh,
Miller put in a half-bet from the small
blind with 5-3 and flopped a winning 5.
Hand
57 saw three-way action, with two players
going all in, Emad Rayyan for 31k and
Lee Salem for 26. Salem had A-K, Rayyan
had A-5 and a third player, Chris Pikula,
had pocket jacks. The board came A-Q-7-K-9.
Salem took the main pot and Rayyan was
left with 10k. A few hands later, right
after limits went to 16k-32k, Pikula,
a New York options trader who won a World
Series hold'em event in 2002, was all
in with Q-J against Steve Ford's A-K.
A board of A-K-3-9-7 left him in seventh
place.
A
couple of deals later, Rayyvan posted
his last chips in the big blind. He had
K-9 to Hang's Q-J. Rayyan looked in good
shape when the flop came K-J-8, but then
a queen and a jack gave Hang a full house,
and Rayyvan ended up eighth.
Right
after limits went to 16k-32k, Pikula bowed
out seventh. He held Q-J and Steven Ford,
with A-K, flopped two pair.
On
hand 89, Salem busted out in three-way
action. Bui, starting with A-4, not only
made aces-full and took the chip lead,
but had the added pleasure of seeing Hang
bet into his filly on the river. Salem,
a poker player, has a win in the California
State Poker Championship and a final table
in the 1998 WSOP championship event.
Ford,
a chief information officer with multiple
final tables and two tournament wins last
year, found himself in the small blind,
all in with Q-2, on the next hand. Tran
finished him off by catching two aces
to his A-5.
The
chip count now stood at: Bui, 465k; Miller
and Tran, both with 345k; and Hang, 195k.
Limits now were 20k-40k. Another 40 hands
went by, with first Miller, then Tran
and finally Bui, with over 700k, taking
the chip lead. Hang went all in one time,
but made a full house. On hand 138, J.C.
Tran was in the big blind with only $15,000
left holding just 7-6. Bui raised with
A-Q and Tran fatalistically added his
last five chips. The board came Q-5-2-8-J,
Tran finished fourth and Bui now had about
$900,000.
Now
the wild three-way action began, with
the final table to eventually last 8-1/2
hours. When limits went to $30,000-$60,000,
Bui still held the lead with 710k, while
Hang had 360k and Miller, 280k.
Hang
went in two more times in a row, each
time surviving with full houses. Then,
with 10 minutes to go to the next level,
Miller, who had gone all in his share
of times, had eight chips left and didn't
think he'd get that far. But he picked
up a few pots, and by the time limits
went to 40k-80k, he had about 350k to
300k for Hang and 700k for Bui. He bit
deeply into Hang's stack with a full house,
then knocked him out when his Q-8 edged
Hang's Q-4.
Heads-up,
Miller won the next couple of hands to
drop Bui down to about 100k. On the final
hand, Miller had only 8-6 offsuit to Bui's
J-4. Then the board came K-10-6-A-10,
and the paired 6 was all Miller needed
to nail down his half-million dollar win.
-- by Max Shapiro
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