Draw-Outs
Win for Novice
Raj Patel doesn't have much poker experience,
but with the cards he caught tonight he
didn't need much. Three big draw-outs
in the final seven hands gave him a tremendous
chip lead and victory when a four-way
deal ended the second event of the Bicycle
Casino's 2004 Legends of Poker tournament,
$100 limit hold'em. In those last hands
he hit two straights and a flush, all
on the river. Patel, an electrical engineer,
has been playing poker for only four months,
and this was but his second tournament.
This
event carried a $30,000 guarantee, and
with an enormous turnout of 690 players,
the Bike had no trouble meeting it.
The
final table combined haves and have-nots,
with three players holding more than $100,000
and four with $14,000 or less. Patel was
the biggest "have," with $137,500. Action
got underway with limits of $3,000-$6,000
and 2:11 left on the clock. With those
limits and half-hour rounds, there wasn't
much room for finesse or overly tight
play. Action was bang-bang, and the lead
changed hands several times.
Omar
Campolongo, lowest-chipped with $7,000,
left on the first hand. He was all in
with K-Q and dead on the flop when Walter
Smiley made a set of jacks. Phillip Penn
Sr. started second-highest in chips behind
Patel and took over the lead on hand four.
With limits now at $5,000-$10,000, Penn
kept chasing with A-7 and caught a bullet
on the river to outrun Patel's pocket
queens and run his count to $162,000.
On
hand 11, Patel went further downhill,
while Agop "Jack" Boghossian went completely
out. In three-way action, Patel had Kh-4h.
A flop of Kd-8h-4h gave him top pair and
a flush draw, though Khanh Hua had him
out-kicked with A-K. An offsuit deuce
and ace gave Hua the pot and Boghossian
mucked his unseen hand and cashed out
ninth.
On
the next hand, Hua made it two kills in
a row. He raised with 10h-6h and Fodil
Moussa went all in from the small blind
with Q-J. A board of 8-4-4-5-7 gave Hua
a straight. Hua now had the chip lead
with more than $190,000. Patel took another
hit a few hands later when he couldn't
beat the pocket jacks held by retiree
Roy McGinnis. Patel now had only $38,000
of his starting $137,500 left. He started
his comeback by winning two pots in a
row, the second time going all in on the
river when he paired his king to outrun
Phillips' pocket 7s.
Veteran
pro Walter Smiley had started the final
table with only $14,000. He had hung on,
but UPS employee Allen Kling left him
in seventh place on hand 23. Smiley had
A-Q and Kling, with only K-6, hit a full
house when the board came 10-6-5-10-6.
Patel's
first and biggest big draw-out came on
hand 27 when he went up against chip-leader
Hua. With A-A, Hua was nearly a 12-1 favorite
against Patel, who had A-3. When a flop
of A-7-6 gave Hua a set, he became better
than a 98 percent favorite. But then a
4 and 5 came to give Patel a straight.
A frustrated Hua flung his cap on the
table, but quickly regained his composure
and congratulated Patel. The two were
now nearly even in chips.
The
next hand saw the departure of Shahin
Kargar. She had also started with just
$14,000, but aggressive play had kept
her in action. In the small blind with
A-8, she flopped an ace but was blown
away by Kling's set of 4s.
Patel's
second miracle hand came when he was an
82 percent underdog with pocket 9s against
Kling's pocket kings and somehow managed
to make another straight when the board
came 8-5-2-7-6. On the last hand he had
Js-5s and made a flush on the river to
beat Phillips' paired 5 and leave him
in fifth place. Patel now had $282,000,
twice as much as Khahn, while McGinnis
had $94,000 and Kling $36,000. A deal
was proposed and accepted, and Patel had
his first victory in only two tries.
BIOGRAPHY
Raj
Patel, an electrical engineer since 1990,
only began playing poker four months ago
because wanted to join friends of his
who were into the game. Until this tournament,
only his second, he had been playing limit
hold'em cash games with limits between
$3-$6 and $6-$12. He's finding tournaments
more to his liking because he's been frustrated
by players in his small-limit side games
who raise no matter what they have.
Patel
says he's never read any poker books and
has gotten most his off-table education
from watching WPT games on the Travel
Channel. Tonight, he said, he kept catching
cards and was never in trouble until that
one time he went all in at the final table.
He came to the last table with the lead
after taking down a big pot in three-way
action at the third table. Two of his
opponents had pocket pairs, and he made
four 10s.
Max Shapiro
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