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Poker player at WSOP makes bold call with $1M prize at stake

The World Series of Poker introduced a Mystery Millions bounty No-limit Hold’em event this summer that featured a $1 million first prize.

Tyler Brown of Northbrook, Illinois, earned the seven-figure payout late Monday at Horseshoe Las Vegas thanks in large part to a courageous call he made with ace high during heads-up play against Guang Chen.

After a flop of 3-3-2, Brown bet 18 million chips holding ace-five and Chen check-raised to 72 million. That forced Brown to think for about 45 seconds before he made the call.

The turn was the queen of spades, and Chen put Brown all-in for his remaining 227 million chips. Brown went into the tank for well over a minute before he made a hero call for his tournament life while holding only ace high and an inside straight draw.

Chen rolled over king-nine and told his opponent, “You’re good.” The queen on the river was no help to Chen, and Brown took a 10-to-1 advantage after raking in the pot. One hand later, Brown outflopped Chen and scooped his remaining chips.

Brown, who is a pot-limit Omaha specialist, had never played the WSOP until this summer. He finished sixth in the $5,000 buy-in Mixed No-limit Hold’em/Pot-limit Omaha event for more than $92,000 on Friday.

Chen, who had the chip lead entering the final table, won $561,320 plus bounties.

The $1,000 buy-in event drew 18,188 entrants, making it the fifth-largest live poker tournament in history. Shant Marashlian and Patrick Liang each pulled $1 million bounty prizes.

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.

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