Legends of Poker - Season 2 - Sep 3, 2003
Dot-Com millionaire, Paul Phillips came to the final table
at the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker as a massive chip
leader. He faced five other opponents at the Bicycle Casino
in Los Angeles on September 3rd 2003 that included poker legend
TJ Cloutier, Farzad “Freddy” Bonyadi, Chip Jett,
Phil “The Unibomber” Laak and Mel Judah.
Action started with Paul Phillips using his stack to bully
the opposition around, famously showing a jack-deuce bluff
against Phil Laak. A few hands later Laak was the first to
go home after losing a race with pocket sevens against poker
legend, TJ Cloutier. Freedy Bonyadi made his exit next, followed
by Chip Jett leaving Judah, Phillips and Cloutier left to
fight it out as they evened out in chips. After losing the
chip lead to Mel Judah, Paul Phillips pushed all in with pocket
7’s and was called by TJ with pocket Jacks. Phillips
hit his two outer on the turn and just barley had TJ covered.
As Judah and Phillips went into the heads up battle, an odd
combination consisting of Lou Diamond Phillips, a unicycler
and Shawna Hyatt presented the money to the table. On the
final hand both players caught a straight on the river, Judah
with the higher end and Phillips with the lower one. Judah
pushed all-in and Phillips took a long time before finally
calling the bet. Once down to only T30,000 in chips, Mel Judah
fought his way back to win the title and the $579,375.
