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Scotty Nguyen wins The WSOP 2008 $50,000 HORSE World Championship - $1,989,120
While stacking his chips after winning the previous hand, Scotty "Win" Nguyen intoned, in classic Scotty style: "It's gonna be all over baby." It was the 314th hand of the final table and they had been playing for over 13 hours. The game was Hold'em. Scotty raised and DeMichele called for all his chips. Scotty had Michael dominated as the cards were revealed:
Scotty Nguyen: Ad, Th
Michael DeMichele Ac, 3h
Board: As, 9h, 6h, 7c, 4s
The crowd exploded on the River while Nguyen & DeMichele had a private exchange. Always the gentleman, Scotty congratulated DeMichele before starting his own celebrations.
With this, his 5th bracelet, he joins Allen Cunningham, Ted Forrest, Stu Ungar, Phil Ivey, Berry Johnston, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson and Gary Berland in number of WSOP bracelets won. But that's not really the whole story. He is now the only person to pull off what will no doubt become known as the Ultimate Twin Accomplishments in poker; winning both the Main Event and the $50,000 HORSE Event.
Besides the $1,989,120 and the bracelet, he also receives the first ever David "Chip" Reese Memorial Trophy.
Michael DeMichele cannot be too disappointed, winnng $1,243,200 for 2nd place.
Nguyen on DeMichele: "He's a great up and coming young player. Everyone told me to watch out for him."
Nguyen on winning: "The $50K HORSE Event is the best all around player...#1 in the world. Nobody can walk up to me and say, Scotty, you're second, baby."
Nguyen while being presented with the trophy: "This feels so good, baby. This is it!"
Final Results
1 Scotty Nguyen $1,989,120
2 Mike DeMichele $1,243,200
3 Erick Lindgren $781,440
4 Matt Glantz $568,320
5 Lyle Berman $444,000
6 Barry Greenstein $355,200
7 Huck Seed $284,160
8 Patrick Bueno $230,880
9 Ralph Perry $177,600
10 Raymond Davis $177,600
11 David Bach $159,840
12 Phil Ivey $159,840
13 Daniel Negreanu $142,080
14 Joseph (Joey) Michael $142,080
15 Andrew Bloch $124,320
16 Doyle Brunson $124,320
The aftermath
Now that the ESPN coverage of this event has been broadcast, and in light of the controversy it has stirred up, I thought I should append one last post to this thread:
My sources at the time didn't alude to any of this going on, so I was as surprised as everybody when this hit the fan. Keep in mind that ESPN is in the business of selling commercial time, and the more fireworks, the more they sell. That can't completely counter what is shown on the screen, but without having been there, we have to take what we can from the ESPN coverage and various sources.
Michael DeMichele, the young gun sitting at a table of primarily old guard players, was causing a certain amount of consternation with his playing to the crowd and generally exhuberant behavior. It should be pointed out that he came to understand the error of his ways as things progressed and not only modified his behavior for the better, but also apologized to the table at large.
There was also one particular hand where it appeared he slow-rolled Barry Greenstein. In an interview last week on the Two Plus Two Pokercast, he explained that situation as follows: It was 6th street in razz. He had a made 6 board lock against Barry. He said he wasn't trying to slow roll but rather was deciding on whether it might be wiser to flat call and then check raise on the river. He was worried that Barry might be able to fold to the 6th street reraise. He decided to reraise in the end.
Scotty Nguyen acted inappropriately in too many ways to count. Here are a few of them:
1. Drunk
2. Generally abusive.
3. F-Bombs galore
4. Probably soft playing Lindgren to spite DeMichele
5. Showing cards to the crowd in the middle of a hand
6. Specific abuse towards DeMichele
7. Deriding the Tournament Director for the slowness in the arrival of "cocktails".
The tournament directorship have been roundly criticized for their lack of control at the final table. There was only one warning the whole time which was about soft play. Nothing about language or behaviour.