Joe’s
Chips Grew & Grew
Joe Grew’s chips just grew and
grew in the ninth event of Legends of
Poker 2003,
$500 pot-limit hold’em. After 17
hands, with eight players left, the 30-year-old
from Carlsbad, California had more than
40 percent of the chips, and after that
he went on an unbelievable rush, catching
cards at will and blowing away the field
in a performance even more dominating
than that of Scotty Nguyen’s the
night before. When it got heads-up, he
had $167,500 of the $187,000 in play,
and he mercifully ended the slaughter
in a deal with runner-up Nicky Dileo,
a New York pro with a bracelet from the
World Poker Open.
Only nine participants made it to tonight’s
final table after Steven Ford and David
Levi, both with smaller pairs, were dispatched
by Dileo’s pocket kings. Ford couldn’t
complain, though. He made it all the way
to 10th place after being down to one
chip with four tables left.
The finalists were playing with blinds
of $600 and $1,200, which allowed the
first one in the pot to raise anywhere
from $2,400 to $4,800. At that point,
Grew, with $37,900, was just a tad behind
chip leader Neil Ho. Gone in 60 seconds
was salesman Habib Khanis who committed
his $4,300 to pocket fives on the first
hand. He was okay until the river when
Lawrence Truong caught an ace to his A-10.
After that, nothing very significant happened
until hand 17 when Grew made a three-bet
all-in raise of $25,500. He held pocket
10s, and after long thought, Lawrence
Truong called with Ks-Qs. Grew made 10s
full on the turn and Truong was left with
just $2,100. Grew told Truong he should
have gotten away from his hand after the
last big bet, but in point of fact, the
10s were only about a seven percent favorite.
In any event, Truong put all his chips
in from the small blind with A-K on the
next hand, losing to Daniel Bakker’s
flush.
Grew now led big with 78k. Behind him
were: Neil Ho, 45k; Dileo, 21k; Bakker,
17k; Juan Holub, 11k; Brian “Bear”
McCann, 8k; and Don Hoffman, 7k. With
blinds of 1-2, Hoffman, a contractor,
was in the big blind with Qh-9h. McCann,
who just began hosting a new no-limit
game at the Bike, put him in and broke
him with pocket kings.
A few hands later, McCann raised $10,000
with pocket aces and issued a challenge:
“Put it in. Let’s gamble.”
Responding all in with pocket sevens was
Holub, who flopped a set and filled. “They
do it to me every time; I’m the unluckiest
person on the planet,” McCann moaned
as he grasped his last four $500 chips.
Under the gun in the next hand, the Bear
tossed in his four chips with Jd-9d. “I’ll
give you some protection,” offered
Ho, raising 5k. “Protection from
what?” McCann replied.
Forgetting what happened when the Bear
asked for callers, Ho then said, “The
water’s warm. Come on in.” Dileo
found the water so warm that he raised
all in 17k. The water was now too hot
for Ho, and he jumped out. Dileo had pocket
10s, and, like McCann’s tormentor
the hand before, flopped a set and then
filled.
From here on out, the show belonged to
Grew. Hand 31: His pocket queens knocks
Bakker out in fifth place. Hand 37: he
has A-Q to Ho’s J-10. Ho bets 5k
into a flop of 6-6-6, Grew raises him
all in and wins with a river ace. Hand
41: Holub raises all in with As4s. “I’ll
take the odds,” Grew says, calling
with Q-8. A flop of 7-6-5 and two spades
makes Holub better than a 3-1 favorite,
but an offsuit river queen wins it for
Grew. He has virtually all the chips now,
and it ends with a deal.
BIOGRAPHY
When
he won the Big Poker Oktober championship
event last year, Grew was described as
something of a “mystery man”
who begged off providing any significant
details about himself or his background
or occupation, other than that he was
29 and currently lived in Carlsbad. Same
story tonight. Even his photo, with the
bill of his cap pulled low over his eyes,
was identical to the one taken a year
ago. As Plato said, the more things change
the more they remain the same. (Whatever
that means.)
Though he’s played poker for seven
years, Grew turned to tournaments just
last year, placing 17th in a World Series
shoot-out event, then making a final table
at the Bike’s Mini Series. In he
past 12 months he’s piled up 12 final
tables. Tonight, he said, he started off
strong and was “ahead of the curve”
all the way.
Max Shapiro
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