$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-entry)

Entrants: 314      Prize Pool: $100,000

“This is my biggest tournament win by far,” said an obviously pleased Jermaine Phang moments after taking down Event 4 of the 2014 Lucky Hearts Poker Open at Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Coconut Creek. Not only was the $17,000 pay day his biggest cash ever, but it tripled his career earnings of $5,324. Not a bad two days at the “office”. “I love playing at the Creek,” said the 34 year old electrical engineer from Pompano Beach. “I mainly play tournaments here and I’m going to play in the WPT Main Event.” Jermaine joked that he was “going to Disney” when asked what he was going to do with the money. That’s certainly an option now after his win. Congratulations Jermaine!

A total of 314 players turned out over the course of two starting flights and by the time play wrapped up early Tuesday morning there were a total of 68 players coming back to vie for the 36 in the money spots. Wendy Freedman from Las Vegas led the way with 276,900 in chips. It would take just over three hours of play to get into the money and it would be well known local poker professional Darryl Fish who would burst the bubble when his Ace-King won a race against Tim Miles.

With 15 players left, Freedman was still in the chip lead, now with 1.25 million in chips which was 300K more than her closest competitor Jonathan Marks. It would not take much time to get down to our final table of 10 and it was Phang who won one of the bigger pots up to that point when his A-K bested the A-Q of Ira Marcus on an Ace high flop. Freedman had dipped a bit in chips but was still the chip leader as we started play:

The chip lead would change hands when Freedman and Jonathan Marks would tangle in a pot early on. On a queen high flop, Freedman would check call a 95K bet from Marks. The turn was an Ace and when Freedman checked, Marks instantly bet 145K. Wendy decided to look him up. Both players checked the rag flop and Marks showed pocket Kings, which was good enough to take down the pot. “That Ace showed up and it ruined my plans,” said Marks before adding “I have to complain about something, that’s like the 6th time I’ve had Kings today.”

Darryl Fish would score a double up at the hands of Wendy when he moved all in for a total of 217K with pocket Aces and Freedman, who had 50K already in the pot, made the call with . That pot moved Fish over the 500K mark and Wendy was just slightly above that mark. Our first player eliminated would be Leroy Grant when he moved all in over the top of Ray Nalbandian’s 110K bet on a flop. Ray made the call with pocket Queens which was well ahead of Grant’s pocket 6’s. The turn was the giving Leroy a few more outs but the river was the and Ray scored a huge double up moving him to over 1 million in chips and Leroy was left with just 8K. He would be eliminated on the next hand with K-Q against Dennis Rodriguez’s A-Q.

In what would be “the biggest hand of the tournament for me” Jermaine Phang scored a massive double up at the hands of Wendy Freedman when she moved all in from the small blind and Jermaine woke up with Ace-Queen and instantly called. Freeman held and her rapid descent continued when the board would not find a way to make her a winner. Wendy was still alive with just under 400K in chips and Phang now moved up to over a million. Phang’s good fortune would continue when he got it all in behind against Patrick Heneghan with when Heneghan held pocket Kings. Asking for an Ace, it would be a Broadway straight that would send the pot Jermaine’s way when the board ran out . A frustrated Patrick would pound his fist hard against the table as he was our 9th place finisher.

Freedman’s descent would be completed when she moved all in over the top of Dennis Rodriguez’s 75K opener with pocket 10’s. When Dennis made the call and showed Kings, Wendy could only shake her head while saying “are you serious” to no one in particular. The board would run out and Freedman was eliminated in 8th place.

The table buzzed for a bit talking about how quickly Freedman had gone from the chip lead. One player said “she was taking unnecessary risks” and others nodded their heads in agreement. The seven players went on a break with the approximate chip counts looking as follows:

With the blinds at 20K/40K, Jason San had less than 10 big blinds and got the rest of his chips all in with against the hot Jermaine Phang who had . San asked for clubs and then a 5 when the flop came . No 5 or clubs would come for him as the turn and river was the and San was eliminated while Phang continued to add to his chip lead.

Harold Lamm had been a short stack for quite some time, even managing a quadruple up when he hit two pair against three other players. He could never gain any stack momentum, however, and finally was eliminated when he moved all in for less than four big blinds with and Darryl Fish looked him up out of the big blind with . The first card out of the dealers hand was the prompting Fish to say “not a good start.” The next two cards, however, would change that as it was the to give Fish bottom two pair. That would end up holding up to send Lamm to the rail in 6th place.

They played five handed for a bit before the remaining players decided to make a deal and chop the money five ways. Phang received a bit more as he had a commanding chip lead and as a result he was declared the winner. The payouts for the final five were as follows:

Final Results: