It wasn't meant to be for Tony Hachem today. He was confronted repeatedly with big decisions for all of his chips. When he finally made the right decision, the poker gods did not reward him. Instead they flushed him out of the tournament.
Action was limped five-ways to a flop of . Small blind Priscilla Mierelles checked to the big blind, who bet 1,100. Next to act was Johnny Hanes. He improbably moved all in for 35,000! Hachem held his head in his hands as he once again seemed to be faced with a big decision. With only 17,000 chips, Hachem would have to gamble all in if he wanted to win the pot. He stared Hanes down to get a sense of what to do.
"You look at me any longer you've gotta give me an engagement ring too!" joked Hanes of the newly-engaged Hachem. Hanes then asked TD McDonagh if he could go to the bathroom while Hachem deliberated. McDonagh instructed Hanes to remain at the table while action was pending but did call a clock on Hachem.
"I've gotta call ya," Hachem finally said, pushing his 17,000 into the middle. Everyone else quickly folded, taking us to showdown.
Hanes:
Hachem:
Hanes flopped a pair and a flush draw and was drawing against Hachem's bottom set. The turn was a blank.
"Black card! Black card!" Hachem pleaded. Instead the dealer found the , a card that filled Hanes' diamond flush and ended Hachem's day.
Hanes shook Hachem's hand. "You're the last person I wanted to... I'm sorry brother." Hachem wished Hanes well and gathered his things.
Hanes, for what it's worth, teaches at University of Illinois. He said the courses he teaches include Business Management and HR Management ("obviously not statistics!" he said with a laugh) and wanted to acknowledge any of his students that are following along.
On a flop of Bouya led out 3,500 with his and had his opponent fire over the top for 7,000. Bouya tanked it, possibly hollywooding, before counting down his opponent's stack and setting him all in. The opponent snap called slapping confidently on the table, before dismaying that he was behind.
All Bouya needed to do was hold up. The turn was fine, but the river gave his opponent a full-house and caused Bouya to punch the table in disgust.
On a flop of , one player checked the action over to PokerStars Team Asia Pro Bryan Huang. He fired out 1,100 and his opponent called after some deliberation. The turn was the , which both players checked. It was the same action on the river. Huang's opponent was diguste to see Huang check behind; he slammed down for the flopped full house!
Tae Jun Noh was all in at risk of elimination earlier in the day and managed to draw out, turning the nut straight. He had no such luck a second time around, getting his chips into the middle with on a board of . His opponent had flopped a set of threes, so the running nines that hit the turn and the river did not improve Noh to the best hand. He's out.
Despite being fairly remote from the U.S.A., there are a handful of Americans in the room. One of them is Johnny Hanes -- "like the underwear," he told us as we scribbled down his name.
Hanes is an incongrous guy, as he's dressed in a Montreal Expos baseball jersey and a University of Texas cap but claims to hail from Alabama. Hanes took shot at playing one of the hyper-turbo super-satellites on PokerStars that funneled into a qualifier tournament for this event. He said he managed to double up early in the qualifier and then coasted from there.
Hanes arrived earlier in the week and played in the Cebu Cup, finishing as the bubble boy. He's hoping to cash in the Main Event so that he can claim that he is the first player from Alabama to cash in the Philippines.
Hanes is off to a good start, having already managed to double his stack.