WSOP Event #7: William Chen Wins $3,000 Limit Hold’em Bracelet

It has been a pretty good 2006 WSOP for William Chen so far, to say the least. After cashing twice in the first week, he began the second week of this poker festival by taking home his first WSOP gold bracelet, along with $343,618, after emerging victorious in the $3,000 buy-in limit hold’em event.

Along with calling him champion, you can also call Chen a well-rounded player. His 2006 cashes have been in both short-handed and full-ring no-limit hold’em, and he cashed twice last year, once in Omaha high-low and once in pot-limit hold’em. Chen has four other minor tournament victories on his resume, one in limit hold’em, two in no-limit, and one in stud. This WSOP win was his first tournament win of any kind since 2000.

Chen actually started the final table as one of the shorter stacks, with $122,000 in chips. With antes at $3,000 and limits of $5,000/$10,000, he actually didn’t have much room to maneuver, even though, as some people might think, this was “only” limit poker. Chips can dwindle quickly if you play to the river in a couple hands and lose. He actually saw his stack get so small that he ended up all-in just two hours into play. Fortunately, he doubled-up on an all diamond board with his pocket Jacks, since he held a diamond and his opponent did not. At this point, Chen only had $85,000 in chips.

He had crept back to just above his starting final table stack when the play was down to five competitors. Then the run started. First, he knocked out Danny Ciasamella after flopping two pair. Next, about 20 minutes later, Chen used pocket Aces to cripple Karlo Lopez, and proceeded to knock him out a short time later. After another 30 minutes, Chen eliminated Henry Nguyen with a straight, to go heads-up against Rich Zhu with $200,000 advantage.

Heads-up was all William Chen. He ate away at Zhu’s stack by stealing blinds and raking small pot after small pot. Zhu eventually put up a fight, but it was too little, too late. Zhu had so few chips that on the final hand, he was all-in after the turn with just a gutshot draw – 10-5 on a 7-4-3-Q board. Chen had A-4 for middle pair. The river Q did nothing for either player and Chen took down the title.


Final Table Standings

(Place/Player/Prize Money)

1. William Chen -- $343,618
2. Yueqi Zhu -- $184,409
3. Henry Nguyen -- $91,632
4. Karlo Lopez -- $80,178
5. Danny Ciaramella -- $68,724
6. Larry Thomas -- $57,270
7. Allan Puzantyan -- $45,816
8. Ernie Scherer III -- $34,362
9. Jeffrey Lisandro -- $22,908

Originally published July 5, 2006