Last Desert Heat Champion Crowned
There were some notable players in the field of 86 that made some deep runs. Joel Smith, who is a regular at Minnesota state championships ended up finishing in 19th place. Joel has more state championship appearances (12) then any player in the Free Poker Network. He also has many final table appearances, but luck has always fallen a bit short for him unfortunately and this tourney was no different.
Finishing in 12th place was Jeff Gab from Dickinson. Jeff was one of the exclusive 50 Party at the Palms qualifiers. Both him and his wife Vonda came out to Las Vegas and partied in the Kingpin and Erotic suites back in June for the championship.
After a couple hours we were down to four players and there was one player with a significant chip lead. Jody Hamilton from the St. Paul area had over 50 percent of the chips in play. Jody was a past winner through the Free Poker Network in the Gold Rush promotion finishing second place in a tournament of over 350 players. Jody won a trip to San Jose, California to play in the World Poker Tour's Bay 101 event.
The first of the four to go out was Mike Lovelace from Wadena, Minnesota. Mike is well known in his area playing extensively in the league and many home games. The third place finisher was Jack Lippert from Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Jack has been at many Florida state championships and came real close again to winning one of the big packages. Jack was real close to winning one of the Ship It packages about a year ago.
When we got down to heads up it was Jody Hamilton against Denny Vandelinde from Cook, Minnesota with Jody holding about a 5 to 1 chip lead on Denny. On the first hand of heads-up play Jody tried to eliminate Denny with both holding live cards which Denny was able to win. The very next hand, Jody was one foot out the door to Vegas holding Q-8 to Denny's Q-6, but a six came to save Denny's tournament life and pull the tournament even. After about 10 minutes of heads up battle Jody flopped top pair and Denny flopped top two pair to become our last Desert Heat winner! Jody didn't walk away empty handed though as he won an Ipod shuffle for his runner-up finish.
Congratulations to Denny Vandelinde as he will be joining the 24 other winners in Las Vegas in January!!