Longsheng Tan Wins Event #66: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em for $323,472
Event #66: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em returned Sunday with six players left to battle for the top prize of $323,472 and Longsheng Tan carried his chip lead into his first WSOP bracelet win after four levels of play the final day.
The real estate agent who also plays a lot of poker is originally from China but now makes him home in Las Vegas.
"When I have time, I sell a house. When I don't, I play poker."
His poker hobby is paying off a lot lately, as Tan has been cashing all over town for a total of 29 scores already this year for a total of $562,791, including four WSOP cashes.
He put together a dominating final table performance on the final day of play, keeping the turbos on and shifting gears when necessary.
"I just tried my best," said Tan. "As long as I played my best, I'll take whatever result. I had to stay calm. At one point, my chips went down to where almost everyone had almost the same stacks. I told myself to calm down, play my hands, and play my best. I was a little bit tilted but still I calmed down and got it in the end. I feel good right now."
Official Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize Money |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Longsheng Tan | United States | $323,472 |
| 2 | Lanny Levine | United States | $199,862 |
| 3 | Jayaram Kovoorchathoth | United States | $142,785 |
| 4 | Trey Brabham | United States | $103,212 |
| 5 | Adam Laskey | United States | $75,497 |
| 6 | Stephen Bierman | United States | $55,892 |
| 7 | John Pannucci | United States | $41,884 |
| 8 | Georgiios Tavoularis | Israel | $31,775 |
| 9 | Jason Paradis | United States | $24,409 |
Final Table Action
Tan held the chip lead for much of the tournament, returning on Day 3 with the lead among the final 26 and ending the night back in the lead after losing it during the day. He then stayed at the top of the counts for the majority of the final table, keeping the pressure on his opponents and winning more than his fair share of pots to stay in command.
After 16 eliminations on Day 3, the field was down to the unofficial final table of 10 and players moved to their new home at the Poker Central Twitch feature table in Brasilia. Tan began dropping back in the counts, but then sent out Shyam Srinivasan in 10th, winning a flip.
The official nine was set and Adam Laskey was responsible for the next elimination, that of Jason Paradis. Paradis was behind with a flush draw against Laskey's top pair, and although he hit his flush on the turn, Laskey made a bigger flush on the river to send him out in ninth.
Laskey also eliminated the next two players, Georgios Tavoularis and John Pannucci, in eighth and seventh, respectively, to get the field down to six and to end play for the night. Tavoularis, who entered the final table as one of the shortest stacks, lost a flip to Laskey, and then Pannucci got it in with fours against Laskey's ace-king and couldn't hold.
Final Day
Tan and Laskey entered Day 4 as the two big stacks, and both players kept the pressure on. The shortest stack to start the day belonged to Trey Brabham, and he was the first to get all in and at risk. He ran his king-queen on the button smack into the aces of Lanny Levine in the small blind, and politely asked for his "one time." He got it, flopping a queen and turning another to double through.
It would be Stephen Bierman to bite the bullet in sixth place after a very short Levine found a couple doubles to get back in the game. Bierman ran his ace-seven into the ace-ten suited of Jayaram Kavoorchathoth and both made a pair of aces, but Bierman was out-kicked.
Stacks began to even out in the next several hands, but a big confrontation between Laskey and Tan would change that. In a limped blind-versus-blind hand, Tan check-raised a five-six-nine flop, led the jack turn, and shoved when the six paired the board on the river. Laskey called all the way down with ace-nine for nines and sixes on the end, and Tan tabled pocket fives for a full house to eliminate Laskey in fifth and take a big lead in the final four.
Brabham found himself on the other side of a bad beat against Levine when they got it in on a five-eight-five flop, Levine's nine-eight outkicked by Brabham's king-eight. A nine on the river saved Levine, who doubled through and left Brabham short. Brabham busted soon after in fourth place, the first player in the event to earn five figures.
Tan kept the pressure on three-handed, and play continued this way for a while. Despite doubling through Tan once, Kavoorchathoth eventually committed his stack correctly, check-shoving with pocket fives on a queen-six-four flop against Levine, but Levine looked him up with king-jack and spiked a king on the turn to send Kavoorchathoth out in third.
Tan started heads-up with a 3:2 lead over Levine, and despite holding his own in the match, Levine fell in the 17th hand in a cooler. All the chips went in on the river of a board that read 
, and Levine's ten-seven for trips was no good against Tan's ace-seven for sevens full.
Levine had to settle for runner-up and a consolation prize of just under $200,000 while Tan took the gold and his best live cash of $323,472.
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