Madison a poker capital? Two more local men hit it big in World Series of Poker
Madison's biggest claim to fame in the poker world long has been as hometown of Phil Hellmuth, the "Poker Brat" whose 11 World Series of Poker titles and 64 cashes are the most ever.
But other local poker players have been making a name for themselves at this year's WSOP at the Rio in Las Vegas.
On Monday, Phil Galfond, a 23-year-old described as a "poker pro who concentrates mostly on cash games," earned $817,781 and a coveted WSOP championship gold bracelet for winning the $5,000 entry Pot-Limit Omaha game with re-buys.
And on Tuesday, local men placed second and 10th in a $3,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em event that attracted 716 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $1,976,160 with the top 72 cashing.
Johnny Neckar, 22, of Madison, earned $277,452 for second, and Aleksander Zaslavsly of Fitchburg won $24,702 for 10th, the WSOP reported in a news release. The cash was Neckar's second in the WSOP.
In addition, George (Tony) Dunst, a Madison native who graduated from Madison Memorial in 2003 and now lives in Melbourne Australia, finished eighth in the event, winning $54,344. Dunst has cashed in a couple of other WSOP events this year.
Then on Wednesday, Justin Filtz of Stevens Point, who just turned 21 this month, finished third and won $214,139 in event 31, a Six Handed No Limit Hold 'Em tournament.
Neckar finished second in his three-day event to highly regarded poker pro John Phan, who earned $434,789 for his first WSOP title. The 33-year-old Vietnam native has two seconds and a fourth in his WSOP career.
Phan's heads-up battle for the title against Neckar went for 6 hours, 13 minutes, one of the longer heads-up matches in WSOP history. The record is more than eight hours. The entire nine-person final table took slightly more than 10 hours.
The Phan-Neckar match led to one of the most bizarre occurrences in WSOP history: As they passed the six-hour mark and that fact was announced to the crowd, both finalists for three straight hands decided to commit all of their chips before seeing any of the five common cards that would go with their two hole cards.
After that, both players resumed normal patterns of play with each holding nearly the same amount of chips. Half a dozen hands later, Phan finally won the tournament.
Asked about the three-hand all-in flurry, Phan said, "What can I say? I love to gamble. To me, gambling is what it's all about."
The event was the 29th of 54 in this year's WSOP.
Other notable poker players from the
Madison area or with strong ties here include Dewey Weum, a Monona
truck driver who finished fourth and earned $250,000 in the WSOP
Main Event in 1998; John Stolzmann, who was a 23-year-old UW
student when he won a World Poker Tour event worth nearly $1.5
million in 2005; Mark Kroon, the owner of Player Sports Bar and a
poker pro who has an endorsement deal with Ultimatebet.com; and
Suey Wong, a Madison West graduate whose family owned the former
Golden Dragon restaurant on East Mifflin Street and who finished
seventh at event 38 of last year's WSOP.
Photo provided
Poker pro John Phan, shown here, beat Madison's Johnny Neckar in a six-hour No-Limit Hold'em battle.
