F&B
Manager Wins Chop
Well, here we go again. For two out
of the last three Last Chance tournaments
rounding out Legends of Poker 2004 there’s
been a 10-way chip-count deal with not
a single hand dealt at the final table.
Of course, yesterday, by comparison, was
a marathon. Only six players made a deal.
Doesn’t
anybody want to play poker any more? Is
everybody trying to put me out of work
as a tournament writer? Well, somehow
I’ll fill the required space even if I
have to take quotes from the telephone
book.
Let’s
start with the winner, and he is a legitimate
winner, chip-count deal or not. Edward
Padilla, who is the food and beverage
manager at the Bicycle Casino, now has
three final table cash-outs in the four
Final Table events thus far, with a third
and a 10th to go with his win tonight
to virtually lock up first place in the
points race. He arrived at the final table
with $77,000 in chips, $21,000 more than
his nearest rival. He also has two cash-outs
at earlier Legends events, both in hold’em.
Padilla is a no-limit specialist, and
the key to his play is stealing pots.
First place tonight paid $12,260.
Finishing
second was Jeff Brown, who does direct
network marketing for Fuelzone, a no-water
car wash product that uses polymers and
wetting agents. Brown has only been playing
tournaments since last December, only
no-limit tournaments, no cash games. His
style is to play “softly” at the outset,
getting more aggressive as he goes along.
He got as far as he did tonight, he said,
largely because of a mistake. With two
tables left, he had J-9 suited in the
small blind, and thought he was just calling
the small blind. He hadn’t noticed that
another player had gone all in for $15,000,
and was forced to match the bet. The all-in
player had pocket queens, and Brown made
three jacks on the river. Second place
paid $6,210.
Finishing third was Ameer Khan. Not much
in the way of poker accomplishments, but
he did have a delightful tattoo on his
left biceps which he acquired on his last
trip to Hawaii. It read “Texas Hold’em,
and had an illustration of the A-K of
spades. No, Texas Hold’em is not the name
of his girlfriend, but the game he likes
to play. Ameer picked up an official $3,100
for third place, which should pay for
a lot more tattoos.
Tuong
Luu of El Monte, making his second consecutive
final table, finished fourth, which paid
$3,100. Luu is a popular local player
whose cash-ins this year include a fourth
in the Mini Series of Poker and a second
in the American Poker Classic tournaments
at the Bicycle Casino.
Chad
Viall has made four final tables this
week playing all over. This is his first
Last Chance event. “I only found out about
it last night,” he said. It was a feat
getting this far because he was down to
seven chips with six tables left. Viall
has played tournaments for only a year
and is determined to work his way into
the WSOP 2005. He lives in Laguna Hills
and got an official $1,470 for fifth.
Isabelle
Mercier finished sixth, which paid $1,145.
Remember her? She’s the petite young woman,
90 or so pounds of dynamite, who won the
WPT Ladies Night Out II invitational event
two nights ago by running over the field
with super-aggressive play. . Mercier,
from Quebec, Canada, is a former lawyer,
blackjack and poker dealer and administrator
at the Aviation Club in Paris, a post
she quit in January to play poker full
time. She is also writing a tournament
poker book with Gus Hansen and Paul Magriel.
She was the last to be asked if she agreed
to the chip-count deal. She really wanted
to continue playing, but didn’t care to
be a spoil sport, so she reluctantly agreed.
She also said she had some difficulty
adjusting tonight to the shorter-round
structure typical of small buy-in events.
Rounding
out the field was Chan Vu of Norwalk,
$820 for seventh; John Liu of El Monte,
$820; Stephen Knox of Encino, $490; and,
last with the least, Hamid “Captain” Mohammadi
of Marina del Rey, $410.
BIOGRAPHY
Ed
Padilla has been the food and beverage
manager at the Bicycle Casino for three
years. Before that he was the food and
beverage chef at Bristol Farms. Besides
his three Last Chance final tables, he
had a 14th and a 17th in prior Legends.
Counting his Nooners tournaments, he’s
now had 10 cash-outs in 20 events at the
Bike this year. He prefers no-limit because
“It plays to my game.” His game is stealing
pots with any reasonable hand, such as
3-3. He doesn’t play online because he
can’t get a feel for the players that
way.
The
key hand for him tonight came when he
went all in about $20,000 against Jeff
Brown, who was chip leader at that point.
He made a set while Brown, with A-J suited,
missed a straight draw. He wanted to give
credit to Angie Marquez and Javier Sanchez,
both supervisors under him, and to Poker
College boss Sharon Silvas for telling
him their strategies.
Max Shapiro
|
