Phil Laak Grabs His First Bracelet in Event #1! (£170,802)
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Well it's all over but the shouting and the celebrating and the crashing of the ATVs. Okay, Phil Laak's already taken care of that last bit, but now he's got plenty of reason to do the other two as well. After three full days of poker, Laak has overcome the field of 244 runners to capture the winner's crown in Event #1 of the WSOPE, officially blinging out his plaster arm cast. His victory in this £2,650 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Max event comes alongside more than £170,000 in cash, and that's not even the good part. Right now, Laak is across the room conducting interviews, and he's clutching in his hand his brand new, shiny gold bracelet, the first of The Unabomber's career.
For such an early preliminary event, the field was impressively stacked for this Series opener. A veritable who's-who of British poker turned up for this contest, alongside a healthy smattering of international All Stars. The final table was stacked with nearly $10 million worth of tournament cashes, including the WSOPE's all-time leading casher, Chris Bjorin.
Laak began the day in the middle of the pack, and he found his chip stack moving steadily in the right direction right from the starting gun. He was more or less sitting patient for the balance of the day, however, and he watched patiently as Willie Tann, Ilan Rouah, and David Peters fell by the wayside as the first three casualties of the final table.
In the cooler of the day, Laak KO'd Bjorin out of three-handed play when the latter ran his pocket queens smack into Laak's two kings. A third king right on the flop sealed the deal for Laak and sealed the fate of Bjorin, relegated to the rail two spots shy of earning his third gold bracelet.
That left Andrew Pantling and Laak heads up for their first bracelet, and the duel was a mighty one. Back and forth they went for nearly three hours, trading small jabs and little sneaky body punches back and forth for a good long while. In the last few minutes of the fight, the pots suddenly began to grow larger, and the activity picked up noticeably, and it was all coming to a head rather quickly. You actually need look no further than this page to find all the important details of the heads-up battle, the biggest pot coming just a couple hands ago when Laak was all in with two pair. He faded elimination there on the river, and he snagged the remainder of Pantling's small stack just a few hands later to seal the deal.
Despite being a conspicuously pink-haired American here in England, Laak was one of the crowd favorites, and a large crowd of spectators (or as he calls them, witnesses) turned up to root for Laak today. As usual, he played the part of the center of attention rather well, his antics providing some good ammunition both for our blog and for the interest of the spectators gathered around the perimeter of the table.
So then, drinks are on the Unabomber in Leicester Square tonight, and our sincerest congratulations go out to Laak, one of the good guys in poker, on his impressive victory here this evening!
That's a wrap for Event #1, but we've got plenty more action lined up for the next two weeks, so stick with us for the duration of this fourth annual WSOPE.