We probably shoulda mentioned this earlier, but there\’s been a pretty big series of tournaments going on at the Cherokee Casino in Upper Oklahoma. The main event of the Scotty Nguyen Classic IV just finished up … another quarter-million first-place payout from our good friends north of the Red River … and TJ Cloutier won it, avenging the two-outer that cost him the top spot in WinStar\’s big-daddy event.
He defeated Houstonian Ray Henson, whom you may recall went deep in the 2007 WSOP main event — the last Texan standing, finishing in 12th place before being knocked out by, interestingly enough, Scotty Nguyen.
124 players bought in to this $5,000 NLHE event, including a handful of names and faces you may recognize from tables around North Texas and elsewhere:
TJ Cloutier, Richardson, 1st place — $241k
Ray Henson, Houston, 2nd place — $138k
Brant Hale, Norman, 3rd place — $72k
Gavin Smith, Las Vegas, 4th place — $42k
Noah Nodine, Norman, 5th place — $33k
Daniel Robertson, Alma, AR, 6th place — $27k
Gil George, Dallas, 7th place — $21k
Scotty Nguyen, Las Vegas, 8th place — $15k
Bill Edler, Las Vegas, 9th place — $12k
Whit Blanton, Dallas, 15th place
Whit: \”I think I did really well to represent the guys from Dallas. It was the toughest field I have ever played against.\”
Todd Brunson, Las Vegas, 16th place
Berry Johnston, Las Vegas, 19th place
Gregg Merkow, Dallas, 20th place
At the river with the board showing T 4 5 4 K, Gregg Merkow moved all in and was quickly called by TJ Cloutier. Gregg tabled pocket 7s and was crushed by TJ\’s pocket Queens. As Gregg gathered his things to leave, he said \”I didn\’t believe him.\” [via pokerpages]
Keith Lehr, Dallas, 37th place
Amnon Filippi, New York, 43rd place
Capt. Tom Franklin, Las Vegas, 50something place
Mike Matusow, Las Vegas, out Day 1, with F-bomb penalties to boot
Also playing: Brandon Cantu, Layne Flack, Tex Barch, Eric Crain and Steve Boyle (winners of smaller big Cherokee events), and Kido Pham (defending Scotty Nguyen Poker Classic Champion).