Frank Gary wins 2008 WSOP Event 41

Frank Gary decided last year after retiring well off from his profession as a software engineer to travel the country in his RV taking shots at high stakes poker tournaments. After trips to four circuits event’s where his best finish was 19th in Indiana he decided to pull the bus up to the Rio and win himself a nice payday and a 2008 WSOP bracelet, okay well perhaps the plan wasn’t that simple but in the end it worked out just the same. Last night Frank Gary scored himself the $219,508 top place prize and a shinny first career bracelet by winning 2008 WSOP Event #41 $1500 buy-in Mixed Holdem.

Coming into the final table Gary was third in chips behind Mats Gavatin and Nick Binger. Binger was playing super aggressive, which helped Gary to continue to play a very tight and selective poker game. His strategy worked very well and he was able to make a lot of blind steals and open up his game when the table ended up four handed.

Final table players and starting chip stacks:

Mats Gavatin 405,000
Nick Binger 339,000
Frank Gary 332,000
Michael Chu 264,000
Jonathan Tamayo 238,500
Alex Jalali 204,000
David MacHowsky 147,500
Chris Rentes 132,000
David Sorger 130,000

As we mentioned earlier Nick Binger played super aggressive and ended up with the chip lead after the first 25 minutes into the final table. Throughout the next few hours Binger went on a tear and eliminated the first six players of the final table, which included big stack Mats Gavatin. After Binger eliminated Chris Rentes in 4th place with 7-high he had a monster chip lead:

Nick Binger - 1,427,000
Frank Gary - 383,000
Jonathan Tamayo – 379,000

However, Binger’s luck seemed to run out when the play went to three handed. Tamayo and Binger continued getting into pot after pot with each other, while Gary laid low and waited for them to knock out each other. It worked, Tamayo made a huge comeback while Gary continued to be quiet and slowly increase his stack. It was Tamayo who put the final blow to Binger who was eliminated in third place for $84,814. Binger put his remaining chips in on a flop of 2h-10d-7h with pocket 3’s and was called by Tamayo with pocket queens and Binger could not muster up a 3 on the turn or river and was sent home.

The last hand of the tournament came when Tamayo raised all in preflop with Qh-7s and Gary called with As-3h. The flop hit a ace for Gary and Tamayo couldn’t catch up with the turn and river and he was eliminated in second place and earned $140,093 for his performance.

Frank Gary received $219,508 and his first career WSOP bracelet. During his exit interview the first person he thanked was God saying “First of all I want to thank God Almighty for this wonderful blessing and gift. Without him it wouldn’t have been possible.”

Poker-Prop congratulates Frank Gary on his remarkable performance and well deserved victory in 2008 WSOP Event 41 - $1500 buy-in Mixed Holdem.