Luis Calvo, a cash game pro from Florida with little tournament poker experience, took down the $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Handed or Event #49 on the 2017 WSOP schedule for a gold bracelet and a $362,185 cash.
The player has previously cashed in two other WSOP events, but has never been even close to winning a Series tournament. He joined the field of the $3,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha along with 629 other entries to survive through all three days of play and eventually steal the gold.
The tournament’s final day kicked off with 19 hopefuls eyeing the bracelet and the first-place prize. The chip counts chart was headed by US poker pro Chino Rheem at the time. Calvo was trailing closely behind the chip leader when cards were thrown in the air for action.
Although the eventual winner did not have much experience in tournament poker, the event’s format was not one he felt uncomfortable with. Over the past several years, the player has traveled around the world, playing No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha cash games. He told WSOP interviewers that he fancied playing high stakes poker. Yet, he felt quite well at the poker tables of Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino’s Brasilia poker room, and he performed quite well apparently.
It took around six hours of play for the final table of six to be determined on Tuesday. The first stages of final table action were marked by Calvo keeping quiet and observing his opponents. The player spend several hours as the short stack and quite behind the rest of the finalists.
An important hand, on which he eliminated Mark Reilly in third place and thus set the heads-up duel, rocketed him to the top. Two-handed battle between Calvo and Rudolph Sawa began with the former holding commanding lead over the latter. And it did not take long before Calvo finished off his final opponent.
The match lasted two hands, during which the eventual winner scooped two large portions of Sawa’s pot. On the final hand in play, Calvo raised to 160,000 pre-flop and Sawa called to see the [9c][7h][4c] flop. Calvo then bet 200,000 and Sawa raised to 920,000. They eventually found themselves locked in an all-in confrontation before the turn.
Calvo tabled [Ac][Ah][Kd][10c] against Sawa’s [8d][6c][3d][2s]. A blank [Qd] on the turn helped none of the players. And a [Qs] on the river quietly sealed Calvo’s victory. Sawa received $223,812 for his runner-up finish. This was the player’s first cash in the Series. He had told fellow players throughout the tournament that he was there to win; and he almost did. Despite his second-place finish, the player certainly marked the beginning of his WSOP cash career in a terrific way.
