Deal or No Deal?
2007-03-12 11:26:07
By: Gene Bromberg
We had 879 players fighting it out for first place in last night's $200,000 Guaranteed Tournament, and with the winner taking home a tidy $45,000 you'd think those who made a deep run would be focused on taking home the title. That's not quite what happened last night when we got down to our final three players.
With two players (taknapotin and Trent55) holding stacks just north of $900K and Broden4 bringing up the rear with $335K, broden4 did something unusual--he offered his opponents a three-way chop of the prize money. Rather a strange request, seeing as lagged far behind them in chips, and the strangeness deepened when Broden4 claimed to be the second-ranked online poker player and that made the deal a fair one. It didn't take long for taknapotin and Trent55 long to decline the deal.
Pride is supposed to go beforeth the fall, but for a time it seemed that the Poker Gods were rewarding Broden4 for his insolence. He kept his opponents on their heels with several big preflop re-raises and an ominous all-in bet into a small pot. And then, after offering such a lopsided deal, Broden4 did something that was rather outside the pale. He got involved in a big pot with Trent55, and after a third diamond fell on the turn Trent55 went all-in. Calling would cost Broden4 all his chips, and he took a long time thinking it over. He eventually did call...and flipped over the A-9 of diamonds, giving him the nut flush. Trent55 held a set of sixes, but he didn't fill up on the river and Broden4 seized the chiplead.
In chat Trent55 said, "#2 slowroll of the year!"
"I thought I offered a chop" Broden4 replied, as if that justified taking that long to call an all-in with the nuts.
Trent55 went out soon after when moved all-in after the flop with A-7 and was called by taknapotin's pocket kings. Trent55 had a pair of sevens on the flop but didn't hit another (or an ace) the rest of the way and finished in third place.
As the heads-up battle began the chip counts were nearly identical, and again Broden4 offered a chop. The reply was short and sweet: "no go". Once again Broden4 took the initiative and built up a sizeable lead with his aggressive play. But in a huge hand taknapotin made a big re-raise on the river, and facing a scary board with an ace and a pair of tens showing Broden4 laid it down and surrendered the chip lead.
What happened on the last hand was perhaps inevitable, but a simple mistake made by taknapotin ensured all the chips went in the middle. After Broden4 raised to $100K, taknapotin re-raised--but only by an additional $100K. Sensing weakness in that min-raise Broden4 pushed and was instantly called. Broden4 turned over pocket tens, taknapotin showed pocket queens, and before we reached the river taknapotin was explaining his play. "Didn't mean to minr," he said. "I put in 1m". But that accidently omitted zero induced Broden4 to invest all his chips, and this time the Poker Gods brought no salvation. Finishing as our runner-up earned Broden4 $27,000, while taknpotin, thanks to his polite refusal to make a bad deal, took home the full $45,000 first prize.
;)
The rest of our final table, and how they were paid, are listed here:
- 3rd-- Trent55 $18,500
- 4th-- Big Jew $13,000
- 5th-- D_M16 $11,000
- 6th-- minbec $9,000
- 7th-- brsavage $7,000
- 8th-- dmmikkel $5,000
- 9th-- x2then $3,500
- 10th-- z23fanatic $2,000
Permalink: http://www.ultimatebet.com/poker-blog-post/Deal-or-No-Deal/1725
