WATCH: Did this Poker Player Angle Shoot at Lodge Final Table?
Daniel Wojcik and Trung Pham chopped the Lodge Championship Series Half Milly event for just over $100,000 a piece, but a controversial hand occurred during the action-packed final table.
The $500,000 guaranteed event at Texas' The Lodge Card Club, a $400 buy-in no-limit hold'em contest, had over $800,000 in the pot. Sunday's Day 2 session, livestreamed on the card room's YouTube channel, played down to a winner.
The final two players agreed to a chop following a heads-up cooler, with Wojcik earning the trophy and $100,072, while the runner-up was paid a slight bit more at $102,614. Pham was fortunate to reach heads-up play and needed to hit a flush in the wildest hand at the final table to get there.
Did Poker Player Angle Shoot?
Five players remained and the blinds were at 300,000/600,000 when a potential angle shoot occurred. Jose Gutierrez, in the cutoff with K?Q?, raised it up to 1,300,000 from his 10,300,000-chip stack. Pham, the chip leader and loosest player at the table, defended his big blind with 6?3?.
The flop came out 10?K?4?, something to keep both players interested. Pham checked his flush draw and then Gutierrez downsized his bet to 800,000 with top pair. That wager was followed by a check-raise to 5,000,000, which put the preflop raiser in a tough spot as he he would likely be playing for his stack if he were to continue on in the hand. And that is when this hand got a bit weird.
Within a few seconds after Pham raised, Gutierrez gathered up his entire stack and made a quick forward motion with his stack before stopping about an inch short of the betting line.
"And there's the all in moment," commentator Slick Rick said.
But it wasn't the all in moment as Gutierrez hit the brakes on his three-bet and then proceeded to reassemble his stack. A few minutes later, he moved all in for real this time and received a snap-call. Gutierrez needed to dodge a spade to stay alive, but the 7? on the turn sealed his fate. He was out in fifth place for $33,971.
Pham became a massive chip leader at the time and would continue in that spot when heads-up play began. But Wojcik would close the gap when he picked up pocket aces and coolered pocket kings to earn a full double-up. The players then agreed to a chop.
The Lodge Championship Series at the Round Rock, Texas poker club began Feb. 16 and will wrap March 4 with the conclusion of the $1 million guaranteed Main Event. The poker room co-owned by Doug Polk, Brad Owen, and Andrew Neeme won the Best Livestream award at the Global Poker Awards last weekend.
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*Images courtesy of The Ledge Card Club.
