On the final hand, Murray decided to gamble a bit, calling Patterson’s all-in with king-jack, later saying that while he obviously still wanted to win, he kind of wanted to end the match at that point too. I mean, I wanted the extra 10k and the ring of course, but it definitely relieves the stress of playing for sixty thousand rather than ten.” After the chop, it relieves a lot of stress, so we could kind of just go for it a little more. Murray told PokerNews that it was the most fun heads-up match he’d ever played. Tyler Patterson and Brett Murray Words From the WinnerĪs mentioned, the heads-up match was a light-hearted affair once Murray and Patterson struck a deal. Ultimately, Murray would bounce back to retake his significant lead and finally claim the title. That left Murray and Patterson heads-up, and while Murray began the match with an overwhelming 6-to-1 chip lead, Patterson clawed back thanks to a double-up on the first hand of play and some incredible play including a correct call with just queen-high.

Nguyen then came back with repeated double-ups to hold a healthy stack again and make it to three-handed play before finally being eliminated by Murray.

The WSOP bracelet winner couldn’t recover from that hand and fell in 11th place.Īnother incredible comeback story was brewing at the final table as Day 2 chip leader Toan Nguyen, who came into the day with more chips than the second and third largest stacks combined lost all but half a big blind worth of his stack to David Ong when five-handed. However, he would lose a critical pot to Arthur Tanimoto after correctly calling off with top pair on the turn versus Tanimoto’s flush draw, but Tanimoto would hit his flush to take a sizeable chunk from Song’s rebuilt stack. The day began with 32 remaining contenders, and for a while, it looked as though an improbable comeback story could be the highlight of the day as Stephen Song, who started the day with just five big blinds made an improbable run to the chip lead. Stephen Song A Day of Near-Comeback Stories

Thunder valley poker room waiting list