An American Champion

Date: 2007.07.23 | Category: Hand Of The Week | By: Phil Hellmuth   

Jerry Yang is living the American (poker) dream. From the rags of his youth, Jerry is now a multimillionaire, thanks to a winning hand at the 2007 Word Series of Poker.

A few months back, Yang, who came to America three decades ago from Laos, entered a $265 buy-in satellite at Pechanga Casino in Southern California, and won first prize — a seat at a 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP) table. Fast-forward to the final table, and Jerry takes the event and a staggering $8.25 million — the most international final table ever. Players were from the United States, Canada, Russia, England and South Africa.

Unbelievably, the chip leader — 31-year-old Dane, Philip Hilm — heading into the final table, with more than $25 million in chips, was the first player eliminated. It’s easy for me to say this, but I do not believe that Hilm should have finished any worse than fourth place. With the blinds and antes super small in comparison to Hilm’s massive chip stack, there is no way that he should have exited before midnight (the final table started at noon), unless he had a series of bad beats. This was not the case, and Hilm busted himself by 1 p.m. while making a massive blunder that will go down in the annals of poker history as one of the biggest “blow ups” ever.