Mandalay Bay WPT Winner

Filed in archive Tournament News on June 5, 2007

The World Poker Tour's timing on the Mandalay Bay Championships may have been a test to see how their tourney could stand up against the mammoth of poker's tournament world the World Series of Poker held a few blocks down the road at the Rio.

With a gap of six weeks in the WPT schedule, it's a good move since the majority of the poker players who can afford the $5,000 to $25,000 buy ins will be chasing those little wrist trinkets that give a poker player instant status. Nonetheless, the WPT rolled in 228 players into this $10,000 event that awarded over $700,000 to its first place finisher Shawn Buchanan.

From World Poker Tour.com here's Tom Bostic with the call from the live blog as Buchanan showed some testicular fortitude with just a small pair late in the tourney to coast to victory:

With the addition of David Levi's chips, Jared Hamby went into the heads-up match with a 2,790,000 to 1,770,000 chip lead over Buchanan. The two battled back and forth in small pots until THE hand of the tournament went down:

With blinds of 20,000-40,000 and a 5,000 ante, Shawn Buchanan made it 130,000 from the button and Jared Hamby re-raised 220,000 more. Buchanan quickly called and the flop came Q 9 4 . Hamby bet out 410,000 and Buchanan just called. The 9 fell on the turn. Hamby fired a huge bet of 600,000, Buchanan counted out a call and put it in the pot without hesitation. When the K came on the river, Hamby slowed down and checked. Buchanan checked behind and in a defeated tone Hamby uttered "No pair."

Buchanan tabled 3 3 to take down the pot. That's right. Pocket threes. So sick.

Buchanan's cheering section went absolutely ballistic, and even supporters of "Waco" stood with their Jaws on the floor. Hamby had been playing relatively conservative for the duration of the final table, picking his spots well but somehow Buchanan managed to look him up at just the right time. Without a doubt, it is a call that will go down in World Poker Tour history.

Appropriately enough, it was pocket threes that would win Buchanan the title just a few hands later. He called the all-in bet of Hamby with his new favorite pocket pair and won the race against K 8 . Defeating the hottest player in poker, Buchanan becomes the WPT's newest champion, taking home $768,775. Rarely does a player lead the field wire to wire like Buchanan did, but when you see him make amazing calls with pocket threes, it is not hard to understand how the young phenom did it.