The event 28 of WSOP 2012, played out to what can be described as the biggest poker massacre ever. With a field of 2,534 players contending for the title of $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em, Wichita’s very own Dung “Gomer” Nguyen skyrocketed through the tables to get to the final table, smashing through his opponents along the way.
The 37 year old, crushed the final table to win his first WSOP bracelet and $607,200 in prize money.
Nguyen presence on day-3 of the three-day event revealed that the player had some poker skills in the league of heavy artillery.
With 1.273 million worth of chips, he was second only to the chip leader Jeffrey Manza at 1.302 million. At the final table, Tyler Patterson was the first to leave as Nguyen gained ground and took the spot of the chip leader on eliminating Manza and gaining 3.27 million in chips; a massive amount consideringthe closest stack of chips were 1.3 million lower.
Blair Hinkle, former bracelet winner entered the final table with just 325,000 in chips.
Towards the end, however, Nguyen’s opponents started to fall with Zachary Korkik ($77,791 in earnings) and Kristijonas Andrulis ($103,995 in earnings) following Manza ($58,874 in earnings) out.
At this point Nguyen’s skills came to light as he toppled the rest of the opponents David Pham, Blair Hinkle and Bahman Jahanguiri.
On Jahanguiri’s exit at the third with $267,241, Nguyen engaged Theo Tran in heads-up play. Nguyen’s killer momentum maintained his chip lead at 3 to 1, against Tran.
Nguyen and Tran entered the last hand with Tran going pre-flop and Nguyen calling it. Unfortunately, for Tran, the flop fell through. The final blow came to Tran, when a Jack on the river sealed the deal, eliminating Tran at second place. This was the second time in a World Series of Poker event that Tran was eliminated at the second place with $377,565 in earnings. Sadly, for Tran, lady-luck was not on his side at this time. However, it will not be long before Tran gets a chance at WSOP glory. This time though, it was Dung Nguyen’s chance to win Poker gold.
Nguyen had not planned to play this game. He was hesitant to play considering the steep buy-in of $1,500. However, since his friend convinced him to play the game, as the two decided to split the buy-in and split the earnings equally.
