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December 4th 2006
Devilfish wins Five Diamond Classic $2000 NLH tournament
England’s Dave “the Devilfish” Ulliot has begun preparations for the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in fine style, winning event #2, the $2000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament.
The $2000 NLH event was the second of 11 preliminary tournaments before the $15,000 buy-in Doyle Brunson North American Classic takes place, which is a World Poker Tour event. All 11 tournaments are NL Hold’em, with buy-ins ranging from $1,500 to $5,000.
Event #2 drew a large field, with 378 players coughing up the $2000 buy-in to build a prizepool totalling $733,320. And it was a field packed with stars, including former WPT winners Nam Lee, Alex Jacob, and Scotty Nguyen (the 1998 WSOP Champion), 2004 WSOP main-event runner-up David Williams, former EPT winner Noah Boeken, and WSOP circuit-event winner Vinnie Vinh.
But the Devilfish thrives in such high class fields and here he produced his masterful best to utterly dominate the field. Devilfish can often seem bored in poker tournaments; I once recall him going all-in preflop eight hands in a row, until he was finally called and beaten, during the final table of the $1000 NLH event on the 2006 Ladbrokes poker cruise. In this tournament however there were no such antics; Ulliot was focused and determined, and the result was rarely in doubt.
The fish took control of the field on the first day, starting Day Two as chip leader and never relinquishing that lead. With the final nine players left Ulliot began to push his advantage and, in-between fierce battles with John Strzemp, he knocked out most of his final table opponents. That left him heads-up with Strzemp and after some toing and froing he finally crippled his opponent when he flopped a mugs straight with 3-4 and survived an all-in against Strzemp’s flush and straight draws. A few hands later Strzemp moved his last few remaining chips all-in with A-6 and was called by Ulliot with A-8. The board missed both players and Ulliot took the title with his 8 kicker.
1 - Dave Ulliot - $266,160
2 - John Strzemp - $148,640
3 - David Farber - $74,320
4 - Sam Alshariari - $42,475
5 - William Lin - $31,850
6 - Rayshawn Smalls - $24,775
7 - Brad Booth - $17,695
8 - Gerald Rhodes - $14,155
9 - Mo Fathipour - $11,325
Submitted: 04/12/2006 10:48:39
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