John Smith may be a very common name, but not all of them have over $780,000 in live tournament earnings, three World Series of Poker cashes and five World Poker Tour cashes in their career.
Smith’s largest score came back in February 2005 when he won a $970 No-Limit Hold’em event at the L.A. Poker Classic for $127,410. The other standout win on Smith’s record was for $93,375 in a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event at the 2005 Legends of Poker.
Smith is from La Habra Heights, California and defeated Bill Chen heads up to get to this final table. He has collected four bounties so far.
Matt Woodward of Waterboro, Maine has an impressive $2,020,267 in career earnings, the vast majority of which came in the 2009 European Poker Tour Grand Final when he finished in second place for $1,709,312. Some of his other accomplishments include a first-place finish in the $1,065 Six-Handed No Limit Hold'em event at the 2010 L.A. Poker Classic for $30,000; a sixth-place finish in the $2,500 Mixed Limit/No Limit Hold'em at the 2009 World Series of Poker for $44,520.
Woodward may have defeated the toughest Round 1 table in this event, having outlasted the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Bryn Kenney, Vanessa Rousso, Tom Marchese, David "Doc" Sands, and defeating Shannon Shorr in an epic heads-up battle; in fact, Shorr's bounty was the only one Woodward collected at that table.
Shane Schleger, born in New York City but currently residing in Santa Monica, California, is a professional poker player known largely for his online poker tournament success, where he plays under the name "shaniac". In fact, Schleger's online prowess is so legendary that he recently became a Team PokerStars Online Pro.
Schleger has over $1 million in live tournament winning including two World Series of Poker final tables and a World Poker Tour final Table. Among his notable cashes are two fifth-place finishes in $1K w/ Rebuys WSOP events, winning $132,110 in 2005 and $111,445 in 2007. He also won $230,000 in a $300 no-limit hold 'em rebuy tournament at the 2006 L.A. Poker Classic. Finally, in July 2007, Schleger pocketed $232,490 after finishing fourth at the WPT Bellagio Cup III on a final table that included Mike "The Mouth" Matusow, Kevin Saul, and Danny Wong.
In this event, Schleger collected three bounties and defeated a Round 1 table that included Kathy Liebert, Shaun Deeb, Dan Heimiller, Jennifer Tilly, and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. Thus far he has earned $46,000 in the Bounty Shootout.
Ali Eslami is a professional poker player currently residing in Los Angeles area with over $300,000 in career tournament winnings. His largest cash came when he finish in 49th place in the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event for $45,000, a number he has already surpassed in this event after winning his first table for $40,000 and collecting three bounties, totaling $6,000.
Primarily a high-stakes cash game player, Eslami joined Phil "The Unabomber" Laak in July 2007 to participate in the infamous competition against Polaris, the University of Alberta poker computer program. Eslami and Laak defeated the bot in two out of four matches and split a $10,000; in addition they tied a third match and earned an additional $2,500.
Eslami defeated a Round 1 table that included Allen Kessler, John Hennigan, Dennis Phillips, Joe Serock, and George Lind III.
Alex Keating, born October 12, 1987, hails from Newport Beach, California and has amassed $248,667 in live tournament winnings. His biggest score to date came at the 2009 Caesars Palace Classic $5,000 buy-in event when he finished fourth, earning $60,970.
While his live winnings are fairly modest, Keating's online exploits are nothing short of impressive. On PokerStars, he plays under the screen name "mistakooll", while playing on Full Tilt Poker as "kadabra" on Full Tilt Poker.
Keating notched a win in the Annual PokerStars 2010 Spring Championship of Online Poker tournament in May for $245,000, and has multi-table tournament online winnings exceeding $1,500,000.
Keating has only one bounty to his credit, but it was the only one that mattered. He collected Shawn Buchanan's after defeating him in heads-up action on a final table that included Dwyte Pilgrim, Orel Hershiser, Faraz Jaka, Nacho Barbero, and Scott Seiver.
Joe Tehan from Las Vegas, Nevada is a tournament regular who has amassed over $3.05 million in career winnings. Just last year, Tehan won the 2010 North American Poker Tour Los Angeles Main Event held at The Bike for a cool $725,000. That’s a pretty huge score, right? Well, it’s not Tehan’s largest.
Back in 2006, Tehan won the World Poker Tour Mandalay Bay Poker Championship for $1,033,440. The field was 349 strong and Tehan had to defeat a final table that included Burt Boutin, Brad Booth and Alex Outhred.
On top of those accolades, Tehan has recorded 17 World Series of Poker cashes. His best result came in 2008 where Tehan finished sixth in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em event for over $43,000.
Tehan had to defeat a table that included William Reynolds, Daniel Alaei, Nenad Medic and Anh Van Nguyen in order to make it to the final table. He’s already collected three bounties.
Pat Walsh of St. Charles, Missouri is no stranger to poker. He has amassed $552,317 in live tournament winnings including a fifth-place finish in the World Poker Tour 2009 L.A. Poker Classic, good for his biggest score to date of $310,694. In 2010, Walsh made a deep run in the World Series of Poker Pol Limit Hold'em Championship, ultimately finishing 22nd for $21,665, his most recent notable cash..
Walsh defeated a Round 1 table that included Christian Harder, Mike Baxter, Eric Froehlich, and Dan O'Brien, capturing three bounties in the process, to advance to the final table. He has already laid claim to $46,000 in this event and is looking to add a whole lot more.
With over $3.3 million in live tournament earnings, Victor Ramdin is a force to be reckoned with. Back in 2003, Ramdin started making a name for himself in the poker world when he placed 29th in the World Series of Poker Main Event for $35,000 and placed third at the Showdown at the Sands in Atlantic City for $203,700. It wasn’t until 2006 though that Ramdin captured glory with a World Poker Tour title and over $1.3 million in prize money.
Ramdin conquered a field of 431 players to capture the $1,331,889 first-place prize at the 2006 WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic Championship Event. He beat Alex Jacob heads up and just like that he was a star. Now, Ramdin dons the Team PokerStars Pro USA patch while traveling to tournaments all over the world.
In all, Ramdin has 19 WSOP cashes. His largest WSOP cash came in 2008 when he placed 64th in the $10,000 Main Event for $96,500. He also has two appearances at WSOP final tables.
What is so remarkable about Ramdin making this $10,000 Bounty Shootout final table is that just a couple days ago he won the $5,000 Main Event at The Big Event at The Bike. Ramdin beat Joe Hachem heads up to claim the $500,000 first-place prize and would do the unthinkable if he could win this event as well.
Ramdin comes into the final table having already pocketed four bounties for $8,000.
Welcome back for the final table of the $10,000 ESPN Bounty Shootout at The Bike. Only nine players remain from the starting field of 81 and they're all vying for the $171,700 winner-take-all, first-place prize. What's more is that the bounties have been increased from $2,000 to $10,000 and that should spice up the action a bit.
There's a great line up that has made the final table and here's the seating arrangement.
Seat
Player
Bounties
1
Victor Ramdin
4
2
Pat Walsh
3
3
Joe Tehan
3
4
Alex Keating
1
5
Ali Eslami
3
6
Shane Schleger
3
7
Matt Woodward
1
8
John Smith
4
9
Jonathan Duhamel
4
Play is set to kick off at 2:00 PM PST. Victor Ramdin is in line to capture both the $5,000 Main Event title and The Bounty Shootout, which would be truly remarkable, while Jonathan Duhamel is looking to keep his winning ways going since becoming the latest World Series of Poker champion. Will it be one of them or one of the other seven players at the table? Stay tuned to PokerNews for all the live coverage!
