Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, CA was the host of the fourth stop on the World Poker Tour season 5. This event attracted 458 entrants to Southern California and a $10k buy-in made the total prize pool $4.5million. Beginning on 26th August 2006, this four-day event was whittled down to the final table by 30th August.
This star-studded final table was an excellent display of professional poker and included notable faces such as Scotty “Prince of Poker” Nguyen and Kevin O’Donnell, who made the final table for the second year in a row. Many tipped Nguyen to win the event, but just before the final table he lost a monster pot to Frankie O’Dell and severely crippled his stack. This former WSOP Main Event champion could not accumulate any more chips and ended up all in with his AK against Hoyt Corkins’ A7. The board came T-2-8-7-J and Corkins caught one of three remaining 7s in the deck to knock out Scotty, who took home $133,095.
With five players left, the action tightened up, as every player wanted the coveted title. After some time, Randy Holland exited the tournament in 5th place, $177,460 richer.
Fourth place went to Kevin O’Donnell who made $226,260 for his efforts, but couldn’t take home the title.
Play was down to three for a while and with the blinds at 40k/80k, it was only a matter of time before the chips went in the middle. Corkins looked down at a pair of 3s and decided to call Joe Pelton’s all-in raise with JT. Pelton made two pair on the flop and Corkins couldn’t improve, and took home a very respectable $381,540.
Heads-up play began with Frankie O’Dell having a considerable chip lead over Joe Pelton, but when Pelton got all-in with a set of queens against O’Dell’s two pair he managed to wrestle back the chip lead.
It all ended when O’Dell pushed with pocket 6s and Pelton made the call with A7. The A on the flop was all Pelton needed to take down the title and the $1,577,160 first place prize. O’Dell took 2nd for $776,385.
The Legends of Poker event was the biggest of the tour so far this season, and had the biggest prize pool. Pelton added this win to his 4 WSOP ITM finishes and overall tournament winnings of over $2,000,000.
--Steven Eddleston
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