Tongi wins WSOP Event 8 Mixed Game Championship

Antony Rivera (aka “tongi”) completed an impressive run of poker last night when he became the champion of the WSOP’s inaugural event #8 $10,000 buy-in Mixed Game Championship. In doing so he outlasted a field of 192 entrants which included the absolute “who is who” of high stakes poker.

Rivera is known online as tongi, the name he uses at popular poker forums such as 2+2. He is 22 years-old and came into tonight’s final table with a short stack and not much tournament experience. He’s spent most of his time recently focusing on mixed cash games at the Bellagio and Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. His mixed game experience as well as a double up on the nights first hand helped propel him to the victory.

When the night started the chip counts where:

Matt Glantz 1,150,000
James Mackey 742,000
Tom “durrr” Dwan 642,000
Mike DeMichele 434,000
Sam Farha 374,500
Anthony Rivera 274,000
Jeff Madsen 149,000
Eli Elezra 76,000

The night did not start well for Tom ‘durrr’ Dwan, after doubling up tongi on the first hand he’d double up Eli Elezra next both, during the PLO round. Durrr would lose more chips during 2-7 Triple draw and by the time fixed limit Holdem rolled around he was major short stack. He’d hang on long enough to see Jeff Madsen eliminated in 8th place courtesy of Sam Farha but would become the events next elimination when his short stack went in with pocket deuces. His 2;s were cracked by tongi’s deuce trey on a flop of 10d 9s 3d. Jeff Madsen collected $54,144 for eighth place and Tom ‘durrr’ Dwan $67,680 for seventh.

Sammy Farha put his tournament life on the line in razz starting with 4 5 6 against Mackey’s A 2 5 and Elezra’s 5 87. Mackey would pick up a wheel draw on Fourth Street but brick big time picking up trip aces on 6th. Farha would brick just as bad getting dealt K Q K on the draw. Elezra would take down this pot with 8 7 6 5 4 sending Farha to the rail in 6th place to collect his $85,728 prize.

Eli Elezra came into the day as the short stack and managed to double up a few times to stick around long enough to pick up $108,288 for a fifth place finish. He was done in during Stud/8 when he got his money in with concealed kings only to find himself up against Michael DeMichele’s rolled 3s.

Michael DeMichele would find himself crippled on a hand 2-7 Triple Draw hand which both he and tongi took one card on the first draw and then stayed pat the rest the way. When the cards where turned up we saw.

DeMichele: 8-7-5-4-3
Tongi: 8-7-5-3-2

When this hand was complete tongi had near 1 million chips while DeMichele had just 40,0000. Tongi would put DeMichele out of his misery a couple hands later when tongi tapped pat on the third draw and DeMichele drew one card which turned out to be a useless 10 and he’d head to the rail to collect $139,872 for his fourth place finish.

Tongi took the chip lead before the dinner break when he played a big 2-7 Triple Draw pot against Matt Glantz which ended with him having the better 9 low.

At the dinner break the chip counts were

Anthony “tongi” Rivera 1,891,000
Matt Glantz 1,015,000
James “mig.com” Mackey 926,000

Tongi had show throughout much of the event it was the lowball games that where his specialty and he showed this further but sitting back for a while after the break waiting for his opponents to make a mistake or to beat up on one another. Omaha/8, Razz, Stud/8 would all pass with no casualties while Tongi did enough to maintain his chip stack and then would see his two opponents collide during No Limit Holdem.

On a flop of 7c 6d 3c, Mackey bet 125K, Glantz moved all in and Mackey called.

Glantz: 5s 6c
Mackey: Js 7s

The turn and river brought the Qs and 3d and Glantz was sent to the rail in 3rd place collecting $184,992.

The match would then be decided on the very first hand of heads up play. Mackey raised to 87K, tongi said “make it 287k” and Makey moved all in to which tongi responded “What? You’re all in? I call!” turning over As Kh. Mackey disappointingly turned over Ac 9h. The board ran Qs Qc 2s 4c 5d and Mackey was eliminated receiving $297,792 for his runner up finish.

Anthony “tongi” Rivera becomes the Event #8, $10,000 Championship Mixed Game Event winner taking home $483,688.