It was heads up between Danny Wong and David Pham at the 2006
World Poker Classic. This was the second of Pham's back-to-back final tables. Yesterday, he finished runner-up to J.C.Tran. And today he did it again, but this time he was short-stacked against the only player left at the table. Wong had a 4-to-1 chip lead.
Wong, on the button, opened for $42,000. David Pham raised him $70,000 more. Wong moved all in for $1,400,000 and Pham paused. He had just committed a third of his chips to the pot and this was his chance to either take the lead or take the fall. He pushed with his last $220,000, saying, "I call." Wong showed his hand, A
4
. Pham turned over his J
J
and smiled. Tournament director Jack McClelland instructed the dealer to put out the flop. And while the dealer was burning a card and peeling the first three off the top, Wong called out, "Four, four, four!" The dealer flipped the cards over, exposing them all at once.
Wong had come up a little short on his request, as the board held only two fours, with a 10. Pham reacted as though he'd received a physical blow and jumped back from the table. With eyes wide open, he stared at the board and realized, Wong had just made a set… with his kicker. Pham shook his head and smiled, and in warrior fashion he refused to give up. In an act of defiance, Pham shouted back at the deck, "Jack, jack!" The turn paired the board with another 10. With one card to come, Pham would need a 10 or a jack to win. But the K
came on the river and Danny Wong high-fived his friends in a sign of victory.
Today's headline might have simply recapped Wong's preliminary event 8 win. But David Pham had another story, and it wasn't a bad beat.
Two Days Earlier
It was 3 a.m., and event 7 was just wrapping up. Pham had 15 hours of grinding behind him, just edging into the 10th position with the
shortest stack at the final table.
Pham wasn't due to report back to event 7's feature table until 3 p.m. the following day. But he returned the next morning to register for event 8. From noon until 3 p.m. he doubled up in chips and then entered the stage to tackle event 7's final round of competition. He faced Men "The Master" Nguyen, Barry Greenstein, tournament sage Ken James, two-time
WPC final tablists Justin Bonomo and Peter Gould, along with Todd Arnold, Alan Sass, and Mike Vanier. The chip leader had over a half million in chips. Pham was coming in with $27,000. The task was daunting, but early on Pham doubled up, and then doubled up again. And like water to wine, he quickly turned a short stack into $430,000.
With that accomplished, Pham shuffled back and forth from feature table to daily tournament. It was enough to make
the news, but it wasn't headline material. Not until the action in event 7 reached heads up. Pham had outlived and outplayed eight other tournament elites in a whirlwind three-hour elimination session at one of the most spectacular preliminary final tables in
WPC history. And even though he lost to J.C. Tran, Pham was noticeably pleased with his accomplishment. He'd played some of the best poker of his career in 21 of the last 24 hours and succeeded in making it to the deciding hand. But he wasn't done yet. Pham went back to tackle event 8.
Pham played until 3 the next morning, then packed up his average stack of chips and finally hit the sack. The next afternoon he returned and found himself among another tough lineup. Out of the shoot, Pham eliminated Nhut Tran in 10th place, and then outlasted Nam Le, Yoon Kim, and Hans Lund. He left Chris Bjorin drawing dead to the river, and then avoided several landmines as Wong turned on the fireworks and eliminated William Gaffney, 2006
WSOP final tablist Rhett Butler, and two-time
WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Madsen.
Heads up at his second final table, Phan played down to the last hand. And though he failed to win either event, he certainly deserved his own headline, one that might have read, "David Pham Goes Runner-Up in Back-to-Back
WPC Events 7 and 8."
But this was Danny Wong's day.
Wong was elated after taking down the 2006
WPC $2,500 event. "Last time I missed it by one." He was referring to the
Bellagio Cup II $10,000 championship in July, when Shannon Shorr elbowed him out of a win. "I really wanted this."
"This" meant the title, the bracelet, $319,420, and a seat in the $25,000
World Poker Tour Championship in April of 2007.
For event 7 of the 2006
Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic recaps,
click here for key hands, player eliminations, and photos.
