A Name “Werth” Some Flack ... and $369,535

Relative no-name Thom Werthmann captured the $1500 pot-limit hold’em title after finishing on the high end of a seesaw battle against 5-time WSOP bracelet winner Layne Flack. Werthmann, who hails from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (although by his name you’d think he was part of some Brit poker posse consisting of guys with names like Pendleton Wickersham, Prentis Hollingsworth, and Lloyd Oliver III), stormed backed after being down to just $30,000 in chips when there were 4 players left and Flack had about $1.4 million. Doubling up and playing super aggressive, Werthmann, who placed 179th in 2004’s main event, eventually outlasted both Tony Ma and Martin Green to go heads up against Back-to-Back Flack, who already owns a pot-limit world championship bracelet as well as one in omaha hi/lo and 3 in no-limit, his specialty. Starting off shortstacked by almost 3-to-1, Werthmann became chip leader about 15 minutes into heads-up, and at 2 in the morning, he finally got the best of Flack, as well as all his chips, in a coin-flip all-in race between his A-2o and Flack’s 5-5. As event #3 champion, Werthmann collects $369,535 with Flack pocketing $185,855.

An update on event #4, the $1,500 limit hold’em championship:

After starting yesterday with 1,049 entries (yes, that’s a record for this event—last year had 610), they’re down to 33 players for day two, including Annie Duke, David Chiu, David Oppenhiem, Roy Cooke and Peter Costa (pictured here), who notably once battled me, the snake, at a Commerce tournament (he one-bested me by placing 5th, while I finished 6th). Not as notable but for those taking notes, Phil Hellmuth finished in the money a second time this year but he’s likely not happy with a day one, 42nd place finish that earned him $4,200. Today’s limit action picks up again at 2:00 p.m.

Event #5 gets dealt today, and it will be interesting to see who shows up for this $1,500 buy-in limit omaha hi/lo tournament. Flack’s a solid O8B player but we imagine he’s beat after two long days of pot limit hold’em. Actor/poker player James Woods by the way has entered every event so far, with no money yet to show for his efforts. Same goes for Spidey Maguire, though it isn’t clear if he was in on the limit action.