Luke Graham open shoved all in from the small blind. After some thought Khang Pham made the call for his remaining 11,700,000 and was at risk from the big blind.
Khang Pham: A♦4♠
Luke Graham: A♣9♥
The board ran out A♥3♦4♥7♠10♣ giving Pham two pair and a much needed double up.
Marc Wolpert was owning the table with his gigantic stack and his support group of his wife Lisa, his son Ross, his best friend aka son, Eugene and his coach Melanie Weisner.
Wolpert raised on the button to 2,100,000 and Khang Pham was prepared to defend on the big blind and three-bet to 7,500,000. Wolpert moved all in for effective 16,000,000 and Pham thought for a bit and made the fold.
Khang Pham raised to 1,600,000 on the button and Mark Bramley defended from the big blind.
Bramley check-called a bet of 900,000 on the A♥10♦5♥ flop.
The 6♦ turn saw both players check and the Q♥ came on the river. Bramley led out for 2,300,000 and after a few moments, Pham raised to 9,300,000. Bramley quickly folded and forfeited the pot to Pham.
Khang Pham raised to 1,600,000 and was called by Renmei Liu on the button, and Marc Wolpert out of the big blind.
The action checked through on the 10♦9♣6♥ flop to see the 8♣ come on the turn. Wolpert led out for 2,000,000 and only Liu put in the call.
The 7♦ completed a straight on the board. Wolpert checked and Liu bet 7,000,000. Wolpert told Liu that is was "good bet" before letting go of his hand.
Marc Wolpert raised to 2,500,000 from the cutoff. Luke Graham then went all in from the button for 12,300,000. Action folded back around to Wolpert who thought for a moment before making the call.
Luke Graham: 8♣8♥
Marc Wolpert: J♦J♠
The dealer ran out a board of J♥6♣3♣K♠7♠ eliminating Graham from the tournament.
Marc Wolpert raised out of the small blind to 2,600,000 and Khang Pham called from the big blind.
Wolpert bet 2,500,000 on the 9♣Q♣9♠ flop and Pham called.
The A♠ turn saw Pham call a bet of 3,600,000 from Wolpert.
Wolpert opted to check the 10♣ river over to Pham. Pham thought long and hard, meticulously counting his chips. Eventually, he slid out a bet of 8,700,000 which prompted a quick fold from Wolpert
Earlier this year on an ordinary Monday afternoon, a bespectacled man walked into the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on Las Vegas Blvd. Tucked under his arm was an uninteresting box that only he knew contained something rather interesting – a pair of gold watches dating back more than 40 years.
These were not your run-of-the-mill wristwear, but rather evidence of a unique and often overlooked time of poker history, a year when the World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet, now the game’s highest accolade, was replaced in favor of watches.
1982 WSOP watches
The man holding the box was David Sklansky, who in 1978 forever changed poker by advocating a mathematical approach to the game in his groundbreaking book The Theory of Poker. Nicknamed “The Mathematician,” he proved his prowess just four years later when he won two WSOP tournaments in five days.
First, he won the 1982 WSOP Event #7: $800 Mixed Doubles Limit Seven Card Stud, a tournament that paired one man with one woman, alongside Dani Kelly, and followed that up by taking down Event #12: $1,000 Limit 5-Card Draw High. A year later, the Binions reverted back to the beloved bracelets players know today, and Sklansky captured his third piece of WSOP hardware by winning Event #11: $1,000 Limit Omaha.
It was a remarkable accomplishment, and for more than four decades he’s kept safe the evidence of his victories, both of which still worked. So, why was Sklansky carrying his 1982 WSOP gold watches, two of only 15 ever awarded, into a pawn shop? Well, he was looking to sell them of course, but not to just any of the dozens of pawn shops spread across Las Vegas. Oh no, he was walking into arguably the most famous pawn shop in the world, the home to the wildly popular television show Pawn Stars, and he was there to do it with cameras rolling.
