2007 WSOP champ
Posted on March 25, 2008
Filed Under Pocker
The man who overcame the odds and triumphed in the main event of the WSOP 2007 is one Xao ‘Jerry’ Yang, it was not only at the final table that he had to overcome adversity, having been born in Laos his family were forced to flee the rise of communism there in the 1970s, and had to spend 4 years in a Thailand refugee camp. These days however Jerry Yang resides in California, a 39 year old psychologist, married with 6 children, and what makes his World Series success the more momentous is that he only started playing poker 2 years ago. He showed himself to be a worthy winner as well as a kind and generous man when, after deciding to give 10% of his winnings to charity as soon as he had survived to the prize money paying positions, he then went on to play an astonishing game at the final table.
Having already battled his way through a field of 6,358 players to be one of the remaining 9 players on the final table, he began the day 8th in the chip count. Immediately he began aggressively raising and reraising pots, on only the 9th hand of play his all in reraise forced another player to lay down his (Q,Q) with no overcards on the flop. Philip Hilm was the first player to be taken out of the tournament by Yang, swiftly followed by Lee Watkinson, then Yang caught a lucky 8 on the turn when his (J,8) was in deep trouble against (J,K) to eliminate Lee Childs in 7th place.
Soons afterwards Hevad Khans (A,Q) of spades couldnt improve to beat Yangs (J,J) after hed got all his chips in, and he was out in 6th place. Raymond Rahme (J,J) ended the tournament of John Kalmar (A,K) who failed to find an Ace or king to survive, Yang then proceeded to take out Alex Kravchenko, then Raymond Rahme, before finally getting an all in showdown some hands later with Tuan Lam, the final remaining player.
Tuan Lam (A,Q) made a pair of queens on the flop to move into a strong favourite to win the hand against Yangs (8,8) but by some miraculous twist of fate the precise two cards of a 7 then a 6 appeared to complete a straight for Jerry Yang and the $8.25 million first prize was his.
It can certainly be said that Yang, who won his seat in a $225 live satellite at the Pechanga casino, was a lucky man when he needed to be but then to win the main event of the World Series, you have to be. He certainly deserves his acclaim though, for the way in which he came out playing very aggressive poker from 8th in the chip count, and took almost every other player down in an amzing finale to the 2007 WSOP.
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