Tony Tran Wins WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble After 2-Big-Blind Comeback
Two big blinds and a chair. That’s all it took for Tony Tran to make one of the greatest comebacks in World Poker Tour history.
It happened in the $5,000 WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble, which drew 356 entries to Jacksonville, Fla. That blew by the $1 million guarantee by creating a $1,648,280 prize pool.
On Day 2 of the tournament, World Series of Poker ladies event champ Jessica Dawley doubled through Tran with pocket sevens against ace-queen with roughly 30 players remaining in the tournament. Tran failed to get there and was left with just 16,000, which was just two big blinds. Amazingly, he spun it up and two days later won the tournament for $341,486, which includes a $15,000 seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
Prior to the win, Tran’s biggest score was $68,624 for finishing 85th in the 2015 WSOP Main Event. In October 2012, he also won $58,202 for taking down the Borgata $100K GD Saturday Series and in 2017 finished runner-up in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Event #16: $1,100 NLH for $40,410.
Official Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tony Tran | $341,486 |
| 2 | Jake Schwartz | $228,590 |
| 3 | Kelly Minkin | $146,973 |
| 4 | Ray Qartomy | $95,684 |
| 5 | Ping Liu | $73,734 |
| 6 | Dominique Mosley | $60,981 |
The final table started with a 60-big-blind average stack, but it still only took 11 hands for the first elimination to occur. It happened when Dominique Mosley shoved his short stack with jack-ten suited only to run smack dab into the aces of Jake Schwartz. The board ran out seven high and Mosley fell in sixth place for $60,981.
Ping Liu fell nine hands later when his ace-four suited failed to improve against Ray Qartomy’s red jacks, and from there it became the Schwartz show as he amassed 70 percent of all the chips in play.
On Hand #64, Qartomy busted in fourth place after losing king-queen to ace-seven, and then an extended three-handed match ensured, one that saw Tran work his way into the chip lead. On Hand #106, Kelly Minkin got her stack in with ace-three suited against Tran’s big slick, and while she took the lead after flopping two pair, Tran counterfeited her on the turn. Minkin took home $146,973 for her third-place finish.
In the final hand of the tournament, which took place on Hand #133 of the final table, Tran raised the button holding ace-king and snap-called when Schwartz three-bet jammed with ace-five of diamonds. Tran flopped a king and sealed the deal to send Schwartz out the door in second place for $228,590.
Unfortunately for Schwartz, it continued a string of near misses in WPT final tables. While he has four official final tables to his credit, they've resulted in two sixth-place finishes, a fourth and now this runner-up.
The WPT continues this weekend in Canada with the WPT Montreal at Playground Poker Club. The stop features a CAD $5,300 buy-in, CAD $5 million GTD Main Event with a winner being crowned November 4.
Photo courtesy of WPT & Joe Giron.
