UNKNOWN WINS $2,000,000 If you’ve only been playing poker for a short time you may think it’s going to be a while before you hit that big win. Having seen the unknown Australian Joe Hachem win $7,500,000 just a few months ago we now have the news of another poker nobody in the form of talented amateur Rehne Pedersen winning $2,078,185 at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. The young Viking won a $15,000 buy-in to the event through an online satellite (Familiar story. Remember Chris “$2,000,000” Moneymaker?). Pedersen went on to have exactly the same main tournament success as Moneymaker. Young Rehne took down a host of poker gods in a contest which included some mouth-watering celebrity showdowns between the likes of Doyle Brunson and Phil “Unabomber” Laak.
BEST FEMALE $362,140! Best performing female was newcomer Joanne “JJ” Liu who arrived at the final table with a $3,600,000 chip stack and finally walked away with a respectable fourth place and $362,140 in cash.
BRUNSON BEATEN UP! The most exciting episode of the Diamond Classic was certainly Doyle Brunson reaching the final table in fifth pace with $2,030,000 in chips. He sped into a chip lead by crushing Patrik Antonius with a Full House to Antonius’s Ace-two. However, the aging poker guru took what turned into the first of several savage body blows when new kid on the block Rehne Pedersen’s two-two took down Doyle’s optimistic Ace-seven. As the battle continued Brunson went all-in with Ace-six only to be further bloodied by Rehne’s Ace-nine upper-cut. In a last desperate flurry the old champ went all-in again in their final game only to have Pedersen call and toss out his pair of kings face up. Battered but unbowed, Brunson ambled out of the contest only $500,000 richer. Chicken feed for the great man who will doubtless continue to make more come-backs than Frank Sinatra.
$1,046,470 TO ANTONIUS Despite his earlier set-back against Brunson, Patrik Antonius went on to take second place to Pedersen. Rehne the Viking more or less crippled the handsome GQ cover model Antonius with a straight in their penultimate game and then finished him off when the eventual runner up was forced to go all-in with an inadequate King-seven to Pedersen’s pair of eights. I guess being the best looking guy at the tournament and coming away with over a million dollars is not the worst downer the rest of us can imagine. Several of the female players present were overheard asking Patrik what moisturiser he uses and naturally he made a Flush.
ALL THE ACES poker column: Thursday, March 30, 2006: Five Diamond World Poker Classic
