WSOP: David Warga Wins Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo

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WSOP: David Warga Wins Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo

Tim Fiorvanti | June 17, 2010

david_warga_bracelet David Warga is so old-school that he won the World Series of Poker’s employee event before it was even a No Limit Hold’em event, held as a Limit Hold’em tournament back in 2002. He added his second bracelet Wednesday by besting a very tough table in the $1,500 Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo tournament. Warga is also the first person to ever win the casino employees’ event at the WSOP and an open field bracelet.

“I’ve always been proud of the first bracelet, but I’ve always saw it as a little bit tainted,” said Warga. The second one, being that it’s an open event, means a lot more to me, being that it’s the second one. There’s a lot of people with one bracelet, but I’m now in a pretty small exclusive club of multiple bracelet owners.”

The knockouts started early on in final table play as just a few hands in Allen Bari found his way to the rail. The second shortest stack coming into eight-handed play, Bari made his stand by completing action on third street with the 8 showing. Karina Jett then raised, showing the 3. Bari called, getting the 4 and calling a bet from Jett on fourth street when she got the 6. One bet each got into the pot on fifth and sixth streets, with Bari receiving the 7 and 9 and Jett getting the T9. With just 15,000 remaining in his stack, he bet it all on seventh street, revealing 6J2/8479 for an 8-7 low, but Jett had that beat with her A82/36T9 for an 8-6 low, and her ace-high was good enough to take the high end so that she would scoop the entire pot and send Bari packing in eighth place.

After Jonathan Bascom chopped two pots to survive, and Chris Tryba chopped one of his own, Tryba succumbed to the Stud Hi-Lo curse of having the high hand and having the draw to the low hand suck out to make a better high hand. Holding the 83/63TT for two-pair, no low draw, he was ahead of the 99/487A of Christopher George, who had a pair of nines and a low draw, but Tryba could not beat George when the 9 was flipped up as his final card to make three nines, scooping the pot and sending Tryba to the rail in seventh.

Having survived at least five or six all-ins on his super short stack with chops, it was no surprise when Bascom went out in sixth place. In a three-way pot that also included David Warga until sixth street, Bascom’s four card low draw could not connect, and his high hand could not contend with the sixes-full of Maxwell Troy, and thus he was done.

Considering 23 players entered Day 3 play, getting down to four before 11 pm would be a very unlikely scenario, but somehow, some way they did it, with Christopher George being the unfortunate fourth place finisher. In a three-way pot with Jett and David Levi, George got all of his chips into the middle by fifth street, while Jett and Levi continued to bet all the way down to the end, Jett eventually mucking upon seeing the eights and deuces of Levi. George had a sweat to both halves of the pot, displaying 58/A2JT, needing a three, four, six or seven to win the low half, or any spade to win the high-end. The 2 on the end made a useless pair of twos for George, and he found himself out of the tournament.

Crippled down to her last two 5,000 chips after missing a big multi-way draw in a big pot with Warga, Jett had just enough for an ante, but won her first all-in against Warga, more than doubling up. Unfortunately for Jett, the next hand would be her last, getting all-in with Maxwell Troy, holding a pair of eights against Troy’s queens. Both would make two-pair by the end, but Troy’s kings-up would be the best, and Jett became our fourth place finisher.

After Jett’s bust-out, the three remaining players asked for a short break to discuss a potential deal to flatten out the top three payouts. When they could not come to an understanding, play resumed as it was.

While Maxwell Troy seemed content to sit out of the way and slowly chip down, the Davids tangled in several big pots, chopping most of them but a couple heading in Warga’s direction. Levi’s last 300,000 chips got into the middle at the 50,000/100,000 limits against Warga. Levi’s board ran out T3/TJ83/K for two pair, tens and threes, but it was no good as Warga’s board read 53/K95K/6 for kings and threes. Levi left the table in third, a trail of M&Ms scattered across the table as he made a quick exit, snatching the bag in his haste.

By the time play got down to heads-up between David Warga and Maxwell Troy, Warga held an immense chip lead, with Troy needing to put only one or two raises to get his entire stack into the middle. They danced around, exchanging a couple of chips until David Warga made sevens and sixes, Troy couldn’t improve, and David Warga became our champion.

Here are the full results: