SMALL
TOURNAMENT PLAYER
WINS NO-LIMIT WITH JUST 4-2
A four-deuce was the improbable key hand
that brought victory to Massoud Setayesh
in the fifth event of LAPC XIII, $500
no-limit hold'em. Since only one stack
of $1,000 chips separated him from Van
Pham when they got heads-up, and since
most of the prize money had been locked
up in an earlier five-way chip count deal,
they agreed to simply keep going all in
until one player had all the chips. On
the first deal, Setayesh had 4-2 to Pham's
Q-10. The flop was K-10-2. A jack turned.
Then, as a crowd of Setayesh's friends
and backers roared, a third deuce hit
the river. Pham doubled his remaining
stack on the next deal, but on the third
showdown hand, Satayesh, with 10-7, won
with a straight on a board of 8-9-3-J-A.
Setayesh,
with a background in garment manufacturing
and smog-check businesses, has been playing
full time for three years, specializing
in small-limit daily tournaments. This
is his first major tournament win, and
a completely unexpected one after dropping
down to $600 midway through. Last year
he placed fourth in a field of 336 at
an LAPC limit hold'em event. Van Pham,
a familiar face on the tournament trail,
has numerous cash-ins and titles to his
credit, including a pot-limit hold'em
win at Commerce's California State Poker
Championship last year.
Until
the final table, the biggest pot of the
night by far came at the fourth table.
Two players held a queen when two ladies
hit the flop. Both went all in. Emiliano
Calitis gambled with a flush draw, hit
it, busted the two, along with a third,
short-chipped player who was all in with
pocket eights, and hauled in a pot of
about $90,000.
The
final table started with $500 antes, $1,500-$3,000
blinds, and fast action. On the first
hand, Barbara Enright moved in for $28,000
with A-K. Ricardo Festejo called with
A-J suited. Big slick held up, and Festejo
was down to $1,000.
One
hand later, T. Le raised to $8,000 and
Pham put him in for the rest of his $43,500.
A classic match-up: Q-Q for Le, A-K for
Pham. An ace flopped and nine were left.
On the next hand, Festejo, two away from
the blind, decided to go with his suited
Q-2 for his last thou. No contest: grocery
worker Paul Jones had pocket kings and
flopped a set.
After
16 minutes the blinds became $2,000-$4,000.
Pham, who arrived at the final table way
ahead of everybody else with $124,000,
was playing his usual very aggressive
game, and by hand 13 had climbed to about
200k. Two hands later, Steve Wood knocked
out Jones, who tried an all-in steal from
the small blind with 5h-3h. Wood, in the
big blind, took Jones to the woodshed
by calling with Qd-2d.
Enright,
meanwhile, had dipped down to about $35,000
and, feeling she had to make a move, did
so with pocket 7s. Calitis called with
A-K and eliminated her by flopping an
ace. Enright, a three-bracelet holder
and the only woman to make the final table
at the WSOP's championship event, is one
of the tournament bounty "experts"
for Royal Vegas Poker, an online site.
By
the time blinds went to $3,000-$6,000
with $1,000 antes, Pham had climbed to
$245,000. Dung Le then relieved him of
about $80,000. He raised with pocket 6s,
and Pham moved in with A-10. The 6s won
and now only a few thousand separated
them. Soon after, Setayesh, betting all
in for $68,000 with A-9, was in bad shape
against Le's A-Q, but caught a nine on
the river to survive and become a threat.
Finishing
sixth was Carlos Fuentes of Spain when
his pocket treys couldn't overcome Pham's
two nines. The count now stood at: Pham,
214k; Setayesh, 107k; Wood, 98k; Le, 80k;
and Calitis, 49k. Play resumed after the
chip count deal, and two hands later Le
went out fifth, coming over the top and
going all in when Pham made a small trap
raise of 20k with A-K. Le was way behind
with K-10 and left for dead on a flop
of A-K-6. Pham now had $335,000 of the
$548,000 in play.
Wood,
a dealer at Agua Caliente in Palm Springs,
was dealt out of the tournament when he
raised with J-8 and Calitis put him in
with As-Qs, and then put him out when
a queen flopped. Two hands later Pham
took a big hit, losing over 100k and the
lead after Setayesh called his all-in
bet with the better hand, A-6 to Q-J,
and hit two more 6s.
As
blinds went to 5k-10k with 2k antes, Setayesh
still held the lead with 245k to 182 for
Pham and 121k for Calitis. Pham then regained
the lead by knocking out Calitis. When
Calitis bet 40k with Q-J, Pham bet all
in holding A-4 and Calitis saw him for
his last 115k. A board of 8-9-2-7-8 changed
nothing, and now the match was heads-up.
Pham
now proposed the showdown hands deal and
Setayesh agreed. It was all but over when
Setayesh took the first match with trip
sixes, and two hands later it was.
-- by Max Shapiro
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