With the World Poker Tour Championship now just a few days away, the Five Star World Poker Classic is underway at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Consisting of 11 events leading up to the $25,000 Main Event on Saturday, April 21, the World Poker Classic has a veritable “who’s who” of poker greats. One man, a PocketFiver no less, took down two of the first seven events for over $500,000. You know him as Jared Hamby, TheWacoKidd. Conquering Event #3 ($2,500 buy in) and Event #7 ($2,000 buy in), Hamby enters the WPT Championship confident and with deep pockets. He was kind enough to take some time to talk about his incredible achievement. 
Event #3 was a $2,500 buy in no limit event that drew 251 players. In the end, two remained: Card Player Magazine Editor in Chief Jeff Shulman (pictured at right, photo courtesy of Wikipedia) and Hamby, a top ranked player on PocketFives. Entering heads up play with a 690,000 to 580,000 chip lead, Hamby flopped top pair and Shulman flopped two pair, prompting an all in. The two pair held and Hamby was crippled, facing an 11:1 chip deficit to overcome. Hamby comments, “It looked like I was going to disappoint myself, but was able to come back, which made winning a live tournament even sweeter, especially beating a well-known live pro.” The very next hand, “he jammed and I woke up with an ace. He had 2-7 and I doubled.” Hamby kept the pressure on, chipping away to nearly 400,000 chips. Then, he picked up pocket aces with blinds of 15,000/30,000 and a 5,000 ante. Hamby limped, Shulman raised, and Hamby quickly called. A jack high flop prompted a 130,000 chip bet from Shulman and Hamby shoved. Shulman folded and Hamby became the chip leader once again.Leading 750,000 to 450,000 in chips, Hamby made it 80,000 with pocket eights. Shulman pushed all in. Hamby claims, “I figured he had 2 overs, but he easily could have had a bigger pocket pair. He was playing very tightly, but I don’t fold 8-8 heads up with our stacks.” The pocket eights held over Shulman's K-Q, giving Hamby the win and $223,780.
A few days later, Hamby was back at a final table. This time it was Event #7, a $2,000 buy in no limit event with 483 players. Hamby on the start of Day Two: “I knew I was going to win when I came into the day second in chips out of 21. I was very confident. I just felt it. I was playing great and running well and knew where I stood in every single hand. I had total table control.” His opponent heads up in Event #7 was poker pro Kathy Liebert, who Hamby describes as a solid player who doesn’t make mistakes. However, as Hamby describes, “She was just too straight-forward. I knew if I had the best hand every time I was involved with her. I limp re-raised her heads up with 10-5 suited and I could tell she mucked a big hand.” Hamby's win in Event #7 would mean $298,955 more.
Hamby will be back for the WPT Championship at the Bellagio over the weekend and, in the meantime, thanks everyone for their “virtual sweat” and supportive messages and posts. “It really puts a smile on my face.” He offers these words of advice for poker players aspiring to be the next Waco: “Keep working on your game and adapting. The game is always changing and certain plays that used to work won’t work anymore. Set realistic goals and work hard to achieve them and put yourself in the right position to get lucky when it matters.”
Congratulations again to Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby on his dominating performance at the Five Star World Poker Classic.
Canada
United Kingdom
Costa Rica
Australia
Mexico
Denmark
Russian Federation
Sweden
Brazil
Germany
