JC Tran dominated the LA Poker Classic from the start. By the end of day three, he was the massive chip leader. At the end of day four he was within a few thousand of the leaders. At the end of day five, he’d taken the lead again, and with three players left at the final table, he held almost two-thirds of the chips in play. Unfortunately, as often happens in poker, he came up one hand short of completing the job.
Tran found himself heads up in the final with amateur Eric Hershler. Playing in his first WPT event, Hershler found himself thriving under the lights of the WPT stage. After acquitting himself well in the first five days of play, he’d survived being one of the smaller stack to start the TV process. When he eliminated Jacobo Fernandez in third place, he suddenly had a slim chip lead against the always-daunting Tran.
On the first hand of heads-up play, Hershler limped in from the small blind for T200,000. Tran promptly raised T700,000 more from the big with Ac-7s. Hershler made the call. The flop came Ad-Jc-6c and JC bet out T1.2 million. “I knew he didn’t have the ace because he’d have raised before the flop” Tran would say later. He was right, Hershler didn’t have the ace.
Eric paused for a long time, considering his options and apparently agonizing over them. Finally, after messing his hair and showing obvious stress over the play to be made, he announced himself all-in. JC called instantly, recalling a similar situation where Hershler had done the same with second pair. Eric turned over Jd-6d, good for two pair.
The crowd was stunned, but there were still two cards to come. 4d on the turn left Tran needing an ace, seven or four to win the hand, but it never came. The river was 9h and Hershler took the tournament. He also took $2.4 million and a seat in the WPT Championship for his troubles.
Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com
