You have just won your first
World Series of Poker gold bracelet. What do you do? For many the answer involves friends, a party, Dom Perignon in the case of Phil Hellmuth, or maybe even sleep depending on the hour. Saro Getzoyan had an answer that might catch you off guard, especially considering he just won $333,379 in cash. He is going in to work tomorrow at 8 a.m. EST. He's probably sitting in his cubicle while you read this, working at his software design job back in Boston. Shortly after he beat Geoff Sanford in a heads-up match, he was all smiles and clearly overwhelmed by the win. Shortly after that, he was peering at his watch.
"I have to be at the office at 8 a.m.," said Getzoyan. "Call in sick man," said a friend. Getzoyan then expressed some uncertainty about catching a flight, considering he was still at the Rio at 10 p.m. "Charter a plane," said an onlooker in the crowd. We'll sometimes hear of people who win the lottery and return to their day job. Getzoyan is the poker world's version of this story in turbo mode.
He played a fine heads-up match with Sanford. He began with the chip lead and then lost it for a few hands. He never lost his focus or his composure and regained the lead. It was then just a matter of time, as he leaned on the power of his stack by betting aggressively to win the bracelet. The two were cordial and friendly between hands, but an emotional shield went up whenever cards were out on the table. The friendly nature between the two young players was evident at the end of their match, as well. You could see the disappointment on Sanford's face, but you could also see that he was happy for a fellow competitor. The two even posed for photos together at the conclusion of the tournament. Here is all the action from the felt during their heads-up match, as recorded in the
CardPlayer.com event logs:
When the players got down to the heads-up match, a dinner break was taken for half an hour.
Chip counts at the beginning of the heads-up match:
Saro Getzoyan: $1,580,000
Geoff Sanford: $970,000
Off Kilter
One of the legs at the final table must have been too short, because Getzoyan has shown an uncanny ability to collect chips. Sanford and Getzoyan got involved in a huge pot with J
4
2
J
7
out on the table. There was also $800,000 in the pot. Sanford flipped over A
Q
, but Getzoyan showed down pocket tens to take down the massive pot. Sanford was knocked down to just $560,000 after the hand.
Call It a Comeback?
Over the next half hour, Sanford fought back to even; in fact, he took a slight chip lead at one point. On a board of 10
8
6
7
, Sanford bet $100,000 and Getzoyan called. The river brought the 10
and Sanford led out again for $100,000. Getzoyan called and Sanford flipped over 8
5
. Getzoyan mucked his hand and the chip counts were now $1.5 million to $1.3 million, advantage Sanford.
The Final Countdown
The pendulum then swung back Getzoyan's way and Sanford was down to $800,000. He was then knocked down to $400,000 with 5
2
2
7
3
on the board. "I'm going to have to pay you off," said Sanford as he made a crying call on the river with $700,000 already in the pot. Getzoyan flipped over A
3
and the prophecy was fulfilled.
Leaving on a Jet Plane
A flop of J
8
4
sat on the table when action was four-bet and Sanford was all in. He flipped over 9
8
and Getzoyan turned over Q
J
. The turn and river cards were dealt Q
7
and Sanford was eliminated in second place. He took home $200,511 in prize money. That made Getzoyan the winner of the $5,000 limit hold'em world championship. He walked away with the gold bracelet and $333,379 in prize money. Getzoyan looked overwhelmed, as he smiled from ear to ear, and displayed the new piece of hardware on his wrist. The celebration will be short for Getzoyan though. He will now attempt to catch a red-eye into Boston for work in the morning.
