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Reese honoured by Scotty Nguyen’s victory in Vegas

June 30, 2008

Reese TrophyThe first $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event to be played at the World Series of Poker since the death of Chip Reese was won in typically flamboyant fashion by another poker legend: Scotty Nguyen.

Reese, who passed away in December last year, was the winner of the inaugural event when it was first introduced to the World Series of Poker schedule back in 2006 and was seen by many of his peers as the best player to have ever played the game.

It was because of Reese’s high standing in the game that the WSOP decided to award the winner of this year’s H.O.R.S.E event with a special trophy named in the legend’s honor. It was a decision that raised the standing of the tournament even higher and ultimately brought the best out of all those who found themselves sat around the final table.

The last eight players were an elite group indeed. Nguyen was joined by Barry Greenstein, Erick Lindgren and another Main Event champion, Huck Seed. to battle it out for the bracelet.

By his own high standards, Nguyen had been having a difficult time lately. Having been performing poorly in tournaments, he found himself leading the Main Event with only 12 players left before crashing out dramatically in eleventh place.

This time round though there was to be no such collapse.

By the time Scotty found himself in a heads up position Michael DeMichele, he had built up an impressive chip of almost 6:1 and it wasn’t long before he put his large stack to good use.

After around a dozen hands of hold-em heads up play, DeMichele raised preflop with A 3. Nguyen kept quite for a little moment before telling his opponent “It’s gonna be all over baby” and moving all in with A 10.

DeMichele called the raise, but couldn’t get any help from the flop and found himself eliminated in second place ($1,423,200)

Scotty Nguyen walked away with a cheque for $1,989,120 making him the only player to have won both the H.O.R.S.E championship and the World Championship.  More importantly though, it gave him the belief that he still had what it takes to win a big one.

“The $50K H.O.R.S.E. event is the best all around player - number 1 in the world” he told his supporters after the victory. “Nobody can walk up to me and say, Scotty, you’re second, baby”

Typical Scotty. It’s good to have him back …

Written by ShortStack · Filed Under Poker News 

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