Minh Ly Takes 2005 WPT Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship

There is probably some interesting parallel to be made between Minh Ly finishing as the runner-up to poker legend Doyle Brunson in the short-handed no-limit hold’em event at the World Series of Poker this year and his triumph this weekend in the WPT event that bears Brunson’s name. There is probably a parallel, but for the time being, it eludes this writer. Forced similarities aside, Ly led the final television table most of the way Friday night before finally eliminating Dan Harrington, earning over $1 million, a $25,000 seat to the WPT World Championship, and a gold bracelet.

Going into the final six, it looked like it was going to be just a three horse race between Ly, Harrington, and Gavin Smith, as they were the only players with over $1 million in chips (Ly and Harrington were almost tied at $3 million). The next closest was Don Zewin at half a million. As expected, the two smallest stacks, Jan Sorensen and Tony Grand, dropped out relatively quickly.

What wasn’t expected, however, was how pesky Zewin would be. He survived for hours, actually moving into second place at after approximately 120 hands with $2 million in chips. Keep in mind that the final hand was the 144th. Because he was short-stacked much of the time, Zewin repeatedly committed all of his chips pre-flop, usually forcing the other players to fold. He did this so often, that he earned a nickname: “All-in” Zewin. It was quite an impressive display of short-stack play.

Once Zewin was eliminated in 4th place (after he did get all of his chips in with the best of it), it only took 16 more hands to determine the champion. The hand after Zewin’s demise, Ly crippled Smith, then knocked him out on the very next hand. Ly went into heads-up play with a 5-to-3 chip lead over Harrington.

The first hand of the one-on-one matchup, Harrington doubled-up when his A-J dominated Ly’s K-J. Harrington now had a fairly substantial lead, $6.75 million to $1.65 million, but with blinds of $100,000/$200,000 and $20,000 antes, leads can change quite quickly.

From that point, it was all Minh Ly. He dominated the rest of the play, finally winning the championship when he called Harrington’s $2.6 million all-in with J-3 (no, that’s not a typo). Harrington showed A-5, so he had the best hand, but Ly hit a 3 on the flop to send Harrington home with the second place check of $620,730.

October 24, 2005