Decorative
Concrete Maker Scores
Stone Cold Win in His First Event
Kris
Kaitanjian has made his mark in Las Vegas,
but not playing poker or any other games.
He is vice president of a company making
decorative concrete, and his landscaping
materials have been used by a number of
Sin City casinos. Tonight he made his
mark in poker when he took first place
in the opening event of the Hustler Casino's
Grand Slam of Poker Tournament III, $25
no-limit hold'em.
Not
only is it his first tournament win, it's
the first tournament he's ever played
anywhere. Kaitanjian, who's only been
playing poker for a year, has played mainly
no-limit cash games, generally $200 buy-in
contests.
"I
felt confident tonight," he said. "I thought
I could win." In this $50,000 guarantee
rebuy event, he only rebought once, after
level 4, when he had $1,800 more than
he started with, to give him extra incentive.
The final table of this opening event
did not last very long. It only went 20
hands and ended in a chip count deal with
seven players still left. Kaitanjian arrived
at the final table with the most chips,
$158,500, and had the most chips when
the final tally was made.
This event attracted 373 players who made
460 rebuys, and Kaitanjian collected an
official $31,650 for first place.
Full-time
player Emiliano Calitis came in second,
but the player finishing third, business
analyst Glenn Robertson, didn't have much
more experience than Kaitanjian, having
only played in a few small buy-in tourneys
previously. This was his first cash-in.
Until the last hand he was lowest-chipped
of the seven finalists, but doubled through
against Kaitanjian to leap past four players.
When
the players arrived at the final table,
they were playing with $1,000 antes and
blinds of $4,000-$8,000, with 19:28 left
on the clock. There were 833,000 chips
in play.
In the first four hands there were four
all-ins, and it resulted in the departure
of two players. On hand one, Guy Magner
pushed in his $39,000 and took the blinds
and antes. On the second hand, Calitis
moved in for $93,000, and Magner called.
Calitis had pocket kings to Magner's Ah-Jh.
The board came J-7-6-4-3, and Magner was
out in 10th place, collecting $1,000.
Two
hands later, David "The Lyons" Niknafs,
who started by far the lowest in chips
with only $16,000, found himself all in
and in very bad shape with J-10 against
the A-J held by Greg Kouyoumdjian. Niknafs
was totally dead on the flop of A-A-J
which gave Kouyoumdjian a full house.
Ninth place paid $1,250.
The
big hand of the final table came down
on hand number seven. Kaitanjian, one
off the button, opened for $32,000. Alysia
Chang, who arrived as second chip leader
with $143,800, made it $68,000 to go with
pocket 5s. "Shame on you," said Kaitanjian.
He really wasn't that bothered by Chang's
raise, because he had pocket aces and
moved in for another $47,500. Chang called,
and was suddenly down to about $14,000
when a board of 7-3-2-8-J didn't help
her. Kaitanjian, on the other hand, now
had a huge chip lead of about $240,000.
As
play continued, now with $2,000 antes
and blinds of $6,000 and $12,000. Both
Calitis and young Eric "The Enemy" Arreca
moved in without callers.
Then,
with the blinds rapidly approaching, Chang
decided to take her chances with her last
few chips holding Q-3. Luong, in the big
blind, held only 7-2, but when the board
came 8-5-4-6-10, he had a straight and
Chang had $1,875, her payoff for eighth
place.
Arreca,
meanwhile, never had a lot of chips at
the final table, but finally doubled through
to about $100,000 when he went all in
with A-K and beat Hoang's K-10 when the
board came A-J-10-J-4.
A
few more hands went by, and then Robertson
lost about $20,000 when his A-K failed
to catch up with an all-in Greg Kouyoumdjian's
pocket 5s.
Lam
Hoang was close to the cloth, then managed
to double through twice, the first time
against Robertson, who was in the big
blind with 8-4. Hoang had A-4 and made
two pair. The second time he held A-7
against Calitis and flopped a 7.
There
was now only one more hand to go. Down
to $45,000, Robertson moved in for about
$45,000 with pocket jacks, and Kaitanjian
called with K-Q. Robertson flopped a set
of jacks and was back in contention.
Blinds
were about to go to $10,000-$20,000 with
$3,000 antes, turning the tournament into
much more of a crapshoot. But the clock
was stopped when Calitis proposed a chip-count
deal. This had to be explained to several
of the players who had no prior experience
with this concept.
Tournament
co-director Warren Karp then took chip
counts and made some rapid calculations.
Kaitanjian had the chip lead with $190,000,
followed by Calitis with $175,000; Robertson
with $121,000; Kouyoumdjian with $115,000;
Hoang with $90,000; Luong with $81,000
and Arreca with $60,000.
That's
the order they finished in, after the
players accepted the money break-out.
An official payout of $15,825 went to
Caliltis; $7,915 to Robertson; $5,000
to Kouyoumdjian;$3,300 to Hoang, $2,915
to Luong and $2,290 to Arreca. And the
trophy and top prize went to Kaitanjian,
who is now one for one in his tournament
career.
Max Shapiro
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