Event 18: Maria Ho Wants to Bust; Wins a 4-Way All-In Instead

Jeff Conine Charity Poker Classic / Charity Series of Poker 
Structure
Level 16: 10,000/20,000 with a 20,000 big-blind ante
Players Remaining: 25 of 382

Maria Ho
Maria Ho

Back when there were 27 players remaining, there were two back-to-back multi-way all-in situations.

Maria Ho implied that she was ready to go, and was looking to get it all in, not really caring that much if she wins or loses. And there is a three-way preflop all in with these cards (in descending order of chip counts):

Maria Ho:  10d9d
Player X:  9s7s
Player Y:  8d5h

3-Way All-In Photo by Jorie Damiani
Three-Way All-In Photo Courtesy of Jorie Damiani

The board came 7c6d4sJd4c, and Player Y (the short stack) tripled up with an eight-high straight, while Player X won a side pot against Ho with two pair, sevens and fours.

Ho was still alive, but knocked down below 3 big blinds. The other key part is that none of the all-in hands were even close to a premium hand.

The next hand, five players would be dealt pocket pairs, and four of them were tens or higher.

Manuel Suarez, who has made two SHRPO final tables in a row the past two days, was making a deep run here to hopefully make it three-for-three. Suarez raised from early position, and Afredo Rodriguez moved all in. (Rodriguez had eliminated John Cynn earlier.) The player on the button called all in, and Maria Ho called all in from the small blind, and Jorie Damiani called all in from the big blind.

After seeing all of that, Suarez folded his 7x7x to get out of the way.

The remaining four players showed their cards:

Alfredo Rodriguez:  QhQd
Button:  JhJd
Maria Ho:  AsAc
Jorie Damiani:  10s10h

This time, everyone was surprised that everyone else also had a premium hand.

The flop came 9s7h2d — of course Suarez would have spiked a set of sevens with the worst hand if he had called, but his regrets were short-lived.

4-Way All-In Photo by Jorie Damiani
Four-Way All-In Photo Courtesy of Jorie Damiani

The turn card was the Ah, giving Ho a set of aces to clinch the pot. But since she was so short, Damiani and the button still had a shot to stay alive against Rodriguez’s queens if a ten or a jack hit.

But the river card was the 4s.

Ho won the main pot to quadruple her stack to 196,000 (which was still only worth 10 big blinds), and Rodriguez won the side pot to eliminate both Damiani and the player on the button.

Maria Ho  –  196,000  (10 bb)
Jorie Damiani  –  Eliminated

That left 25 players heading into (what would be) the final break of the night before playing down to a winner.

Jeff Fielder and Jorie Damiani
Jeff Fielder and Jorie Damiani from earlier in the tournament. Big thanks to Damiani for sharing the photos of these all-in situations and the betting details.