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Winner: billybillard Battles Back from the Brink

Oct 7, 2007 Now that the Team PokerRoom.com roster is set for the WPT North American Poker Championship in Niagara Falls in late October, all eyes on Saturday turned to the next prize: winning a $20,050 trip package to the WPT Bellagio Five Diamond Classic.

The Five Diamond Classic is one of the premier stops on the World Poker Tour. Not only is it held at the luxurious Bellagio casino, but last year’s winner Joe Hachem took home more than $2.1 million for his victory, so there’s plenty of cash up for grabs.

Players lucky (and skilled) enough to win a prize package at PokerRoom.com not only get their entry fee and trip paid for, but they also get wined and dined and treated like the poker royalty they are while at the tournament, staying in their fancy digs, rubbing shoulders with the elite of the poker world.

The first online final qualifier for the WPT Bellagio Five Diamond Classic was held on October 6th, with 46 players battling for the coveted prize package up for grabs. As always, plenty of former Team PokerRoom.com members were in attendance, including janus1984, gbpoker, Ovoman, nammer4life, 0-Eric-0, and THEASH.

nammer4life held the chip lead at the first break and made it to the final table but came up a bit short, exiting in 5th place on the dreaded money bubble when his Ah 7h couldn’t overtake billybillard’s QQ. billybillard was extremely short stacked in the early stages of final table play, at one point with barely enough chips to cover the blinds, but he got a few big double-ups to build back up.

Ovoman would hit the rails in 4th place, winning $1,410 plus a $650 + $50 ticket when his open-ended straight draw didn’t come in versus billybillard’s top pair. That vaulted billybillard into the chip lead, with mosomoso and the_joker77 nipping on his heels when three-handed action began.

Unlike some epic battles we’ve seen in the qualifiers of late when the action was three-handed and heads-up, the players wasted no time in wrapping things up. the_joker77 was knocked out in third (collecting $2,115 plus a ticket) when mosomoso out-flushed him on a board of Ts 9c Js 3s. the_joker77 was holding 4s 5s and had to be happy when he hit his flush on the turn -- happy until mosomoso insta-called him with the As 8s for the nut flush.

billybillard battled back once again when it was heads-up action, though, as the comeback kid had some more big hands in him. He had about 100,000 in chips versus mosomoso’s 38,000 when the final fateful hand occurred.

All the chips went in pre-flop and mosomoso was in serious trouble, as his Ac 4d was dominated by billybillard’s Ah 10h. Needing to hit a 4 to stay alive, the flop didn’t help mosomoso much, as it came Qs 3h Jh; if anything it hurt him, as billybillard picked up a flush draw as well.
The 4c on the turn, though, was a sweet sight for mosomoso, as he was suddenly ahead, but needing to dodge lots of cards. Like the 9h, which fell on the river and gave billybillard the flush and the victory.

Mosomoso did collect $3,525 plus a ticket for his 2nd place finish, so congrats to him, as well as to billybillard for booking his trip to the Bellagio in December for the WPT Bellagio Five Diamond Classic. It wasn’t quite a chip and a chair that billybillard came back from, but very close indeed, and a deserving, hard-fought victory in the end.

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