It was a night for coolers to finish things off. After Adam Cygman spiked two pair on the river with the worst ace in Event #3, and Event #7 ended dramatically with aces over kings for Guneet Singh, the NLH/PLO Mix game went from 5 to 1 in just a few hands, ending with a massive set-over-set cooler that ran out to a straight for Julius Roque.
Mike Flanagan was the chip leader 5 ways, and he sent Tyler Hurman home in 5th place with ace-king over ace-ten. Victor Ma busted a couple of hands later, notching his second cash of the day after a final table finish in Event #3.
Roque then found a huge cooler against Flanagan with a slightly smaller stack when Roque flopped two pair and Flanagan turned a worse two pair. The money went in on the river, and Flanagan was left on fumes while Roque was the new leader with nearly half the chips in play.
Flanagan’s fumes burned off on the next, which was the final hand of the two-card Level 21. They moved to four-card poker for heads-up between Roque and Teo Sanchez, who was runner-up earlier in the week in the PLO Double Board Bomb Pot, but they only got to play a single hand of PLO.
Both players flopped a set and the money went in. Roque was also open-ended to king-high or Broadway, and after a bricky turn, the river hit the bottom end of Roque’s straight draw.
This was Roque’s fourth win in an NLH/PLO mix tournament since Aug 2023 here at Deerfoot Inn & Casino, including a Circuit ring in the mix from May 2024. “I am very lucky,” he said after the game when asked about the multiple wins. He certainly had a sun-run at the end of this one tonight, but you don’t win four of these kinds of events in two years without at least a passing level of skill in the games.
