Hunt
Outlasts O/8 Field
“It was a total surprise that
I won,” said Sacramento business
owner Tom Hunt after capturing the 10th
event of Legends of Poker 2003, $500 Omaha
hi-lo. He said he struggled along through
most of the event with only a few hundred
in chips and didn’t start getting
lucky until the late stages.
The real surprise, however, was that this
tournament ever ended. Instead of Omaha
8 or better, it should have been called
Omaha 8 hours or better. With a table
full of cockroaches who couldn’t
be killed, it took two hours just to eliminate
the first player. As play progressed,
there were countless all-ins, but lows
kept hitting the board in odds-defying
numbers that resulted in continuous split
spots and escapes. In one memorable hand,
for example, three players were all in,
and all three made nut lows to get pieces
of the pot.
When the players got to the final table,
the blinds were still only $300-$600,
with $600-$1,200 limits. With 45-minute
rounds and a split-pot game, this portended
a long final session, especially since
the chips were fairly evenly distributed.
By the time the next level kicked in 43
minutes later, only one player, Dong Kim,
had even gone all in. With new limits
of 1-2k and blinds of $500-$1,000, Kim
was shortest-chipped with $5,500, while
Luis Razo, a waiter, had the lead with
20k.
During this round, Hunt came up with the
best hand of the night: a crème
de la crème A-A-2-3 that turned
into a nut low and aces full, at the expense
of Dong Kim. Chan Kim, meanwhile, down
to 2k, stoically sat with arms folded,
folding hand after hand. He finally found
something he liked, a suited A-3-7-10,
then scooped by making both a flush and
a full house on the river. Incredibly,
by the time the $1,500-$3,000 level arrived,
all 10 players, despite numerous all-ins,
were still around.
“It’s like quicksand here,”
observed Frankie O’Dell, winner of
the prior day’s event, $500 no-limit
hold’em. “Someone will be first
to sink when he gets blinded off.”
Finally, on hand 48, Dong Kim missed his
A-2 low draw and sank against O’Dell’s
A-A-7-10. Next, it took a nut low and
nut flush by Dennis Waterman, to remove
the next player, Benny Wan, who couldn’t
hit his pocket aces.
Three hands later there was a double-header.
One off the button, Razo raised all in
for 2k with A-3-4-J. Michael Gutenplan,
an attorney with two Omaha wins at Commerce,
called with A-2-6-7. Then O’Dell,
ranked #1 in this game by Card Player,
re-raised with his last thousand holding
Q-Q-J-10. When the board came 10-7-4-6-K,
Gutenplan scooped with a nut low and two
pair for high, leaving Razo in eighth
place and O’Dell in seventh. Some
20 more hands went by before the next
player departed. Waterman, complaining
about getting “monster” hands
that didn’t pan out, was in the small
blind holding 2-2-3-Q. He went all in
on a flop of 10-6-4, missed everything
and lost to Gutenplan’s straight.
Three hours had now gone by, and five
players were still left.
But now things finally accelerated. Three
hands later, Chi Cam couldn’t do
anything with his A-A-3-6 and lost when
Gutenplan made a flush. One hand after
that Chan Kim pitted his K-K-J-10 against
Hunt’s A-A-4-10 and finished fourth
on a board of 8-2-3-
Q-7.
Hand
85 was the last one. Retired clinical
counselor John Bradley went all in with
A-2-5-K. He thought he had a low when
the board came Q-10-7-5-A, but he was
double-counterfeited, and Gutenplan finished
him with a Broadway straight. Hunt now
had $70,500 to Gutenplan’s $47,000,
and the two agreed to a deal that ended
the marathon.
BIOGRAPHY
Tom Hunt is a recreational player who
owns a residential window replacement
business in Sacramento. He’s been
playing poker since he was a kid, and
moderate-sized tournaments for about five
years. He likes Omaha hi-lo because he
feels the game is “more enjoyable,
more laughing, more hands, more muti-way
pots.” By contrast, he feels a game
like hold’em is too serious. Hunt
has an Omaha/8 win at Lucky Chances and
a second at Commerce.
His style of
play, he says, is instinctual, rather
than ABC waiting for aces or A-2. “It’s
how I feel, how I feel about the other
players.” Tonight he never had more
than $700-$1,200 in chips most of the
way through, and then started getting
some “lucky breaks.” In any
event, the win tonight is a vindication
of sorts of his loss at Commerce on Father’s
Day, when he somehow managed to blow a
lead of 111-6k when he was heads-up.
Max Shapiro
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