One of the worst scenarios for a professional poker player is having a tournament victory within their grasp, only to watch it slip away. Aaron Steury had 75% of the chips when the $1,500 HORSE event at the World Series of Poker got down to three-handed play, but his opponents were able to pull it back to even.

The second time Steury took such a commanding lead, however, he followed through and got the job done to win his first WSOP bracelet, as well as a first place prize of $289,283. This was Aaron’s ninth WSOP cash, but the first final table; he took advantage of the opportunity provided to him.

Steury entered heads-up play with Michael Chow with a significant advantage, but Chow clawed back to make things interesting. In the end, however, Steury’s lead was too much. On the final hand of the tournament, Chow got all-in in Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo with JJ3 against Steury’s AA8. Chow would not improve or make a low, giving Steury the victory.

The turning point in the tournament came on a hand of Limit Hold’em, when Steury made a tough call against Adam Friedman.

“I thought there was a pretty good chance queen-high was the best hand,” said Steury. “He [Friedman] said ‘I don’t know if I’m going to bet this.’ I just thought he was leveling me and trying to get me to fold exactly the hand that I had. That helped me to make the call.”

The $1,500 HORSE tournament started on Friday with 963 players, generating a prize pool of just over $1.3 million. The improvement in turnout over the 2010 $1,500 HORSE event is one of the largest thus far at the 2011 WSOP, with a 14 percent increase over last year’s field of 828.

Day 3 of this tournament started with 17 players, but it would take until just before the dinner break for them to reach a single table. Among the nine players eliminated on the way to the final table was David Bach, who had previously won a bracelet in the 2009 $50,000 HORSE event.

When play condensed to a single nine-handed table, Victor Ramdin had less than five big bets left in his stack. He picked up a double-suited hand with an ace-deuce to make his last stand in an Omaha Hi-Lo hand, but he was scooped by Jonathan Tamayo. Ramdin’s run ended one spot short of the official final table of eight, his fourth cash of the WSOP. The ninth place finish was his best result of the 2011 WSOP thus far.

Paolo Campagno was the last remaining non-American player of the final eight, but the Italian also started the final table last in chips. His split pair of fives in Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo did not improve, losing to Friedman’s unimproved split pair of sevens and eliminating Campagno in eighth place.

The game changed to Limit Hold’em but it did nothing to slow down Friedman’s momentum, who continued to build his stack. Friedman flopped a set of fours against David Baker’s ace-queen on a queen-high board, crippling Baker. Aaron Steury would make four queens in an Omaha Hi-Lo hand not long after, in a three-way pot where Baker’s last few remaining chips were at stake. Baker mucked his hand face down and went to the rail in seventh.

Dennis Ethier was another player whose painfully short stack did not allow him to do much at the final table. He was all-in in Seven-card stud in a three-way pot with Steury and Friedman, with the hand continuing as such until sixth-street, when Friedman folded. Ethier had a pair of jacks against Steury’s two small pair, and when Steury flipped over a 9 for his last card, which didn’t improve his hand, Ethier needed to make a second pair or make trip jacks, but the 8 did nothing for his hand, ending his tournament in sixth place. The pot helped push Steury into the chip lead.

Ron Ware was in the middle of the pack when final table play started, but he could not get a hold of many pots as his stack slowly shrunk. Ware got the last of his chips all-in in Limit Hold’em with QQ and was ahead of Steury’s A4, but the flop was a troubling one for Ware as it came out T87. The 5 on the turn sealed Ware’s fate, and the river A did nothing to change things, sending Ware to the rail in fifth while continuing to build a chip lead for Steury.

In one round of Omaha Hi-Lo, Steury went from a comfortable chip lead to a dominant one. He won a massive pot without a showdown with a check-raise on the river against Chow, then tangled with a very short-stacked Tamayo. On a flop of Q53, Tamayo’s last few chips went into the pot and Steury called. Steury was ahead with Q654 for top two-pair, an open-ended straight draw and low draw against Tamayo’s AQT9. Tamayo would need to hit one of his kickers to stay alive, but the turn and river offered no help, ending his run in fourth place.

Three-handed play went on for quite some time. Steury eventually lost his chip lead, the chips distributed evenly between Chow and Friedman until all three players were virtually even. Steury then reestablished his dominance, pushing his stack to almost 3 million of the 4.3 million total chips in play.

Friedman was the first to succumb to an ever-decreasing stack, putting his last few chips in with 73 only to face a monster from Steury, who picked up JJ. There was some hope for Friedman by the turn when he picked up four outs on an inside straight draw, but he would not connect, eliminating Friedman in third place.

When the tournament got down to heads-up play, Steury’s chip lead was simply too much for Chow to overcome.

Here are the official results for Event 17:

1. Aaron Steury – $289,283
2. Michael Chow – $178,691
3. Adam Friedman – $121,437
4. Jonathan Tamayo – $84,516
5. Ron Ware – $60,036
6. Dennis Ethier – $43,512
7. David Baker – $32,150
8. Paolo Compagno $24,219
9. Victor Ramdin – $18,577

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