Tommy Vedes did what 274 other players couldn’t do and won the 2009 WPT Festa al Lago Championship. The pro pocketed $1.2 million dollars and overcame a lot of obstacles to do so. Entering the final table Freddie Deeb, the most experienced and most decorated live pro, had the chip lead but that did little to deter Tommy Vedes.
In heads up play, Vedes’ stack appeared miniscule compared to his opponent, Jason Lavallee, but Vedes with a steely resolve made mince meat of the chip discrepancy. Lavallee neatly stacked over 12 million in chips at one point, while Vedes had but 3 and half million. It looked like one would make short work of the other, and one did. Shockingly, it was Vedes who in eight hands flipped the script and won the loot.
Recently in the NFL the New Orleans Saints over came a 4 to 1 deficit, but this might have been a bigger comeback. It started innocently enough, Vedes shoved with A10 and was quickly called by the AJ of Lavallee. It didn’t take long for Lavallee to get that squimish feeling in his gut as the flop delivered a 10 and Vedes became the heavy favorite. Vedes survived the turn and river, and suddenly was only a slight underdog.
A couple of hands later Lavallee pushed all in on a pre-flop raise by Vedes. Vedes didn’t take long to call and was happy to see he wasn’t in a coin flip, but a heavy favorite with his pocket fives, miraclously an overpair to the pocket fours of Lavallee.
The squeamish feeling in Lavallee’s stomach became a full fledge kick to his gut. The overwhelming chip lead now vanished and suddenly it was Vedes with the mountain of chips. Lavallee pushed with a suited 86. Vedes called with two overs, KQ and made trip queens. No flush or straight bailed out Lavallee, and suddenly the tournament was Vedes as was the extra payout.
Shocking but Lavallee essentially, in a mere eight hands lost over 400k. Must have felt like he was playing high stakes online poker on a mac. The payouts were:
1. Tommy Vedes, $1,218,225
2. Jason Lavallee, $795,150
3. Craig Crivello, $477,090
4. Freddy Deeb, $278,300
5. Jason Burt, $208,725
6. Shawn Cunix, $168,970