World Poker Tour Legends Of Poker (The Bicycle, Bell Gardens, CA)
Jon Eaton
September 2nd, 2005
A field of 839 players paid or won the $5,150 entry into this month’s main event of the Legends Of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens. Last year’s champion Doyle Brunson beat out 667 players for a $1.2m first prize. This year, whoever won would have to beat out a couple hundred more players for the $1.125m first prize and a $25k seat in the 2006 WPT Championship at the Bellagio.
Going into the final six, our finalists and their chip counts were as follows:
Seat 1 - Kenna James 1.54m. Kenna is a well-known pro who has been on television a few times but hasn’t hit the big time yet with a major victory. He has a resume with a lot of impressive victories and final tables, but this was his first shot at television glory.
Seat 2 - Todd Phillips 1.9m. Todd is a film director who played a relatively different style of the rest of the table. Todd has directed such movies as “Old School” and “Road Trip,” but has never made it this deep in a poker tournament. He definitely is an amateur player, but he held his own all weekend and managed to snag the chip lead going into the final table.
Seat 3 - Jake Minter 1.525m. Jake won a nice chunk of cash at the WSOP main event and made it out for his first WPT event this week. His style going into the final table was simple: all-in. Jake’s only move when they formed the final ten players would ride him into the television table. His move continued to work there, as well.
Seat 4 - Kevin O’Donnell 500k. Kevin had never played a poker tournament before cruising his way into the television final six. He held chips most of the event, but was crippled near the end of the night heading into this TV final six. He managed to sneak into the final six when Dao Bac’s pocket queens ran into Kenna’s pocket aces.
Seat 5 - Tim Phan 1.085m. Tim is a well-known Los Angeles area high-stakes cash game player. He was also the chip leader for a majority of the WSOP main event. Tim had nearly 40-percent of the chips in play at the final two tables, but couldn’t get anything going near the end and lost a large majority of them. He is still the most dangerous player at the table, with or without a chip lead.
Seat 6 - Alex Kahaner 1.855m. Alex had been complaining of being tired most of the last few days, but managed to make a few big calls to build his stack the night before. Alex owns a construction company and is looking to bulldoze the table and get all the chips in his stack.
The action was very, very slow at the start. In fact, Kevin O’Donnell didn’t become our sixth place finisher until a record time elapsed. Finally, after a roller-coaster ride that included doubling up and then losing a monster pot to Kenna James, Kevin was down to his final chip. He was in for half of the ante with the worst hand in poker, 7 2 off-suit. Kenna James raised and isolated him, and showed two sixes. The sixes held up and Kevin O’Donnell became a spectator, earning $208,500.
Our film director would exit stage left when his pocket sevens got all-in against James’ set of threes. Phillips had opened in first position and earned two callers from the blinds. Phillips usually got respect from his bets and raises, because he rarely was out of line. On the T 3 2 flop, Kenna James lead out for a real small bet, looking like a steal move. Phillips took it for weakness and pushed all-in for the rest of his chips. Kahaner folded his hand and James showed pocket threes. No seven appeared and Phillips exited, amid one audience member shouting “You’re my boy blue!”
Tim Phan, up and down much of the final table, was down to nearly 500k in chips when he finally got felted for good. With the blinds at 60k-120k, his only move was “all-in.” As he pushed his last chips in, Kenna James made a crying call with Ac 7c and was disappointed when Phan showed Ad Js. The flop was ugly for both, coming Qs 9c 6s. Kenna had some backdoor draws but was still a big underdog. The 8c on the turn was a big boost to his chances, giving him a total of eighteen cards in the deck to win with. The 7d did it for Kenna, and Phan was finished in fourth place, earning $291,900.
Three-handed play began with Kenna holding a nice chip lead. Jake Minter would soon continue his all-in play and ran into Kahaner’s queens. His own Ah 5h didn’t improve and left him the short-stack. Finally, Minter ran his A 5 up against Kahaner again, who showed A 9. Neither improved, and Minter was busted in third place, taking home $333,600.
Heads-up play began with Kenna James holding 4.6m of the chips in play, and Kahaner 3.78m. After trading blinds and antes, the biggest pot of the tournament would prove to be the key turning point for James’ tournament life.
With the button and the small blind, James opened for the minimum, 600k. In the 300k big blind, Kahaner re-raised to 1.5m total. James studied, and finally pushed his chips into the middle. Kahaner stated “I’m tired, I want to go home” and called, showing Jc Th.
”We’re playing for a half-million dollars!” Kenna exclaimed, as he saw Kahaner’s cards. He held the best of it, but not by much.
The flop was ugly for Kenna, giving Kahaner an open-ended straight draw. The turn provided Kahaner the king-high straight, and James was drawing dead.
Finally, Kahaner moved in with K J and James called in a flash with two sixes. The board was nine high on the turn and it looked as though James was going to double up and get back in the hunt, but Kahaner made a river pair of kings to eliminate James in second place. Kenna James played hard and fought one of the tightest final tables in WPT history, and walked away with $588,210.
Alex Kahaner made some crying calls in the sake of “being tired” to amass chips, and finally became our WPT Champion. It was Kahaner’s first tournament cash and naturally his biggest tournament cash. He won $1,125,000 and a seat in next spring’s $25k WPT Championship at the Bellagio.
