Day six of the PCA Texas Hold’em poker Main Event, an eight person Sit and go with uneven starting stacks played like two tournaments.
The first one consisted of Chris Oliver wielding his humongous stack like a mallet around the table and the players dropping like flies. Galen Hall was the player that lasted long enough to collect his second place check, or so it felt like. The second tournament, the heads-up action, couldn’t have been more different.
Hall played masterful and resisted opportunities to go bust seemingly every few hands, and finally Hall’s resilence wore down Oliver. Suddenly, the self-assured Hall made enough headway in the chip stacks to be able to challenge Oliver on equal footing. Once that moment happened it was almost all but over for Oliver, but we’ll get to that later.
The first half of the day was the steady stream of eliminations. It got started early for Philippe Plouffe. The youngster found pocket queens in the hole and shipped it against Sam Stein. Stein held old unreliable, mr. Big Slick himself, and the coin-flip went Stein’s way. Plouffe, like many of the late eliminations on Day 4, had to wait to the river to see the bad news. Like the title of Barry Greenstein’s book “Ace on the River” spelled heartbreak for Plouffe.
Max Weinberg was next to fall, getting crippled in a hand that was illustrative of the inventive wide open play that typified the PCA. Chris Oliver raised again, this time from under the gun. Sam Stein smooth called. Galen Hall on the button executed a squeeze play and raised with K2 off suit. Considering Oliver and Stein held A2 and 87 suited respectively it was a shrewd play.
Only problem is Mike Sowers in the small blind witnessed Hall’s attempted squeeze play and did some squeezing on his own. He shipped the rest of his chips to the center of the felt holding the ace of spades and the jack of clubs. He didn’t have long to know he was going to get action. Weinberg in the big blind looked down at pocket queens and also shoved.
So to review, five out of the remaining six players mixed it up in the hand. The action went UTG raise, call, reraise, reraise shove, and reraise shove. If this table featured 60 year olds instead of Internet whiz kids, the hands would probably use up the Aces of two decks, and at least the Aces and Kings of one.
Weinberg’s exit was a slow painful one. Two spades hit a flop of all baby cards. Another hit the turn and suddenly Sowers had more life than just three outs. The river paired his Jack but also gave him the flush. Weinberg’s newly short stack was dismissed shortly thereafter.
Bolivar Palacios, despite maybe being the winner with best name at the table, went out sixth. Palacios was of only two players to not enter the fray in the mega hand that crippled Weinberg, but he did but his chips at risk shortly thereafter. Hall opened and Palacios raised all-in on his penultimate hand. Hall called with A4 offsuit. Palacios showed KJ. Nothing above a queen hit the table, and Hall eliminated Palacios. He needlessly paired his four to boot.
Mike Sowers at that point had the most name recognition at the table, a spot he held all day, but as he was next to vacate his seat, that changed. Chris Oliver got Sowers to call off his stack with pocket fours on a board of 832. Only problem for Sowers was that Oliver held 82 in his hand. Sam Stein was the next player to doubt Oliver and he paid the same price–his tournament life.
Details of Stein’s exit hand and the rest of the final table action, in our next post…