The Iceman Goes Blind and Wins.
June 13, 2009

As the first half of Season 14 concluded, the best of the best converged for a showdown between the Red Hot Poker Tour elite, and a place on Team Canada Poker.

On a gorgeous Saturday afternoon the players amassed and shared the usual war stories, and familiar exchanges were uttered across the Adam’s Rib confines—“I can’t believe they would make that call!”

Come one o’clock, Tournament Director Scott McFadyen gave the word and it was time to shuffle up and deal.

From there on in it was all business.

With everyone biding for the top spot, the action got underway at a turtle’s pace. The format was very similar to that of the average Red Hot Poker Tour tournaments—the key difference being the 30-minute blind levels.

The 50% increase in time gave players a little extra opportunity to play around with their chips.

As in any tournament, sooner or later players were forced to make a move and put all their chips at risk.

About 45 minutes in at the 50/100 blind level, the 45 Player Showdown took its first casualty. Brian Taylor moved all-in catching a nine on the board to pair up his A-9. He was sent packing when Christian Aguiluz rolled over his pocket jacks for the jack-high straight.

As time progressed and blind levels rose, more players were felted and tables collapsed. Even the best of the best were being knocked out— many of those who topped the leader board made their exit as their cards went dry.

Gary Nakashima was eliminated next with a short stack and top pair while holding K-2. He saw defeat in a three-way pot on a K-3-5 board. All three players were looking at the same top pair as all the kings were in play. Christian was again the bearer of bad news when he showed his winning top pair, top kicker—‘big slick’ A-K.

Those two knockouts were not enough though; after an up and down day, Christian hit the road in the final two tables.

Ed “Iceman” Welding found himself on tilt early. It wasn’t a bad beat that had the Iceman steaming; his tilt was brought on by the waitress taking away his whiskey before his thirst was properly quenched. Shortly after that he called an all-in blind with merely a 10-7. James Arseneault showed his A-Q. The river card paired the 10 and the Iceman started to ‘snowball out of control’.

With chip stacks growing and shrinking in the time it takes to peel out a river card, it started to become apparent to the participants that it was the Iceman’s day. It looked as though he couldn’t do wrong and the Iceman seemed to know it. Checking in the dark at every opportunity, he was outkicking and outplaying his opponents— making the nuts and driving them nuts at the same time.

The final table was set when the Iceman called an all-in, revealing his pocket Queens against a pre flop raise with pocket threes.

The final table started with nine and was down to seven when the chips were officially tallied:

With the blind levels at 1000/2000 and a 500 ante, moves had to be made quickly.

The Iceman kept racking up the KO’s and increasing his stack. The tournament seemed to be his to lose.

The final table was not without its bad beats, however; Lisa Clayton took a huge hit to her stack when she attempted to slow play the straight she flopped with her 8-5 from the BB position She was outdrawn when Windsor’s Erica Messina turned the flush. The chips were in and Lisa was drawing dead.

The Iceman, continuing to act blind, checked his hand right down to the turn on a board with three spades. Erica moved all-in having completed her nine-high flush. The Iceman was then forced to finally look at his hand, gave the quick call, turned up his K-7 of spades. The higher flush knocked Erica out in 5th place.

Lisa, on the super short stack, was next to go. She was followed by Darryl Gordon, who survived a few all-ins. But as poker tournaments go, there is only one player who survives every all-in move.

Now down to two players, the Iceman had about 90 per cent of the tournament chips. The battle with Katie Lewis was quick. The final hand had Katie in the BB, and in a rare move Ed decided to look at his cards and in an unprecedented move – just called. Katie, checked her cards, found Ace-Trey, and pushed all in, only to be called by Ed who rolled over 10-10. The board came up with a rainbow 2-4-8-4-4. The Iceman’s 4s full of 10s was a powerhouse hand that earned him the victory as the 45 Player Showdown Champ.

Ed “The Iceman” Wendling, a popular member of HBO, is headed to Vegas to represent Team Canada at event #54 of the 2009 WSOP. Perhaps the pros will learn a thing or to from him about ‘blind’ luck.