Home / Poker News July 2009 / Tony Veckey secures first WSOP bracelet in $1,500 NL Holdem event
Tony Veckey secures first WSOP bracelet in $1,500 NL Holdem event
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2009-07-07 01:00
The $1,500 NL Holdem events of the 2009 WSOP never failed to attract large starting fields, on account of the reasonable buy-in amounts and the large prize-pools that these events have generated. Event #54 was no exception. 2,818 players took to the tables on day 1 and out of this starting field, 28 players had made it to day 3.
At the end of it all, it was Tony Veckey who posed for the winner’s picture with his bracelet and his final two hole-cards in hand. The winner’s cut of the prize-pool was an impressive $673,276.
The first elimination of the day came a mere 5 minutes into day 3 action. Brandon Wong moved all-in preflop, holding A,Q against Jason Wheeler’s K,K. The river did give Wong a pair of aces but by then Wheeler had flopped a set of Ks to eject Wong in 28th. The fast pace of the action continued and less than one hour into the game, a double elimination further reduced the field. Eric Hayes and Stephen Outram both got it all-in with pocket pairs. Hayes had Jacks and Outram had pocket Kings. Chris DeMaci called them both with A,K and landed an A on the flop to send them both packing.
The first break came two hours into the day and by then only 15 of the original 28 players were still alive.
The first victim following the break was Vivek Rajkumar who’d had an up and down day and whose tournament run came to an abrupt end when his all-in on a J,10 was called by Chris DeMaci’s pocket Qs. The board did not bail him out and Rajkumar was done in 15th.
Felix Lambertz and Brian Green got both ejected by Mike Ratcliff. Ratcliff however wouldn’t be able to put the chips gained this way to good use. He was eliminated in 10th place by Jason Wheeler, at the end of a nasty bad beat, thus becoming the official final table bubble-boy.
The final table action began extremely slowly as everyone tightened up trying not to become the first one eliminated as every position gained meant serious cash by this time. Eventually, the elimination of Miha Remic broke the ice.
Following that, David Jaoui busted at the hands of Sergey Konkin, and DeMaci followed him to the rail in short order.
Christopher Bonita was bounced next, followed by Andrew Mallot in 5th. Sergey Konkin had been the chip leader for a while, but he got crippled and was eventually eliminated in 4th place.
Joseph Chaplin was the one whose elimination in 3rd place set the stage for the heads-up action between Veckey and Wheeler. Wheeler started the final stretch with a 2-1 chip advantage but his lead would soon evaporate: a back door straight that Veckey landed changed the balance of power at the table.
After that, the coup de grace was a mere formality. In the final hand, Veckey ran his 9,J into Wheeler’s A,Q and proceeded to turn a straight to eliminate Wheeler in second for $418,122.
