WSOP report: Event #17, Limit Hold'em, June 20

Every road to the World Series of Poker is different. Distinctive paths and turns along the way make every player's journey a unique story. Sadly, most players fail to reach their target. They crash and burn along the way. They are defeated in side games and satellites, and get busted out of tournaments.

Broken dreams litter the "bad beat highway," the fitting nickname given to the hallway leading from the poker tournament arena back to the Rio's main casino.

This year, out of the tens of thousands of poker players who come to Las Vegas from all over the world, only 45 will return home as WSOP champions. The rest will walk the Rio's long hallway, exchanging their tales of despair with anyone unfortunate enough to get trapped and have to listen. But not all poker tales are bad. Some have happy endings. Some are even captivating. The latest champion is a 29-year-old semi-professional poker player and restaurant owner from Seattle, WA, named Quinn Do.

Quinn Do arrived in the United States at the age of 11. He attended the University of Washington, where he came within a few credits of graduating with a degree in criminology. Do's ambition was to work in criminal justice - and he considered a career as a private investigator.

"It's very interesting to me -- trying to understand why people act the way they do," Do explained. "In criminology, you get into people's minds. The psychological part of it really appealed to me."

As much as criminology appealed to Do, he discovered he could make better money by opening up a restaurant. Do's life took its first major detour when opened a Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant, which turned out to be very successful. That was just the beginning. His life was to take another route entirely when a few friends walked in one day and started to talk about poker.

"I was sitting there and my friend told me she made a lot of money playing poker. I already knew how to play, so I went to some of the local clubs and played $10-20 (limit hold'em). I did that for about three months. But I really got a lot better at it when I started playing online. I did that for a year before I started to play in tournaments."

The total prize pool for the Limit Hold'em event amounted to $857,900. The final table included one former gold bracelet winner -"Captain Tom" Franklin, a three-time champion. The chip leader was Chi Chang, who enjoyed a substantial lead against the rest of the field. Players were eliminated as follows:

10th Place: Greg Debora, $10,295
About an hour into play, Greg Debora took a bad beat when he moved all-in with A-Q. Tom Franklin had Q-J and watched with delight as a queen and jack both flopped. To put salt into Debora's wound, another queen fell - making Franklin a full-house.
9th Place: Noah Boeken, $17,160
Dutch poker pro Noah Boeken won the 2005 European Poker Tour championship event at Copenhagen. This is his second time to cash at this year's World Series. Boeken lost most of his chips to Quinn Do's trip aces, and then went out a short time later.
8th Place: Spencer Sun, $25,735
By the time play was eight-handed, the betting limits at 5,000-10,000 were so high that a key hand or two was all that was necessary to take the chip lead. The downside was that losing a hand or two meant elimination. Spencer Sun won the Tournament of Champions in 2000. The northern California-based computer programmer appeared to be one of the favorites at this final table, but he ran card cold during the worst phase of the tournament. Sun did make two pair on his final hand, but lost to Quinn Do's straight.
7th Place: Rodeen Talebi, $34,315
Rodeen Talebi went out next when he was short stacked and committed his last chips in the big blind. Tom Franklin eliminated Talebi, who was making his second final table appearance at this year's World Series. Talebi finished in 6th place in the previous Limit Hold'em event.
6th Place: Sammy Arzoin, $42,895
Sammy Arzoin was short-stacked during most of Day Two. He went all-in after flopping a pair of queens, but ended up losing to Quinn Do's flush. Arzoin, who was born in Casablanca, Morocco, has several in-the-money finishes at the World Series.
5th Place: "Captain" Tom Franklin, $51,475
"Captain" Tom Franklin had the chip lead at one point, but lost it as Quinn Do's rush of cards continued. Franklin finally got low on chips and went 'all in' with A-4 suited after an ace flopped. Giant-killer Quinn Do called with 10-10 and hit a set of 10s on the turn. Franklin's bid for a fourth gold bracelet came up short.
4th Place: Tony Nasr, $60,055
Tony Nasr, a.k.a. "TNT" was the next player to explode. He was desperately short-stacked and was competing with Mike Davis to move up a notch on the money ladder. Nasr lost that battle and went out in 4th place. Nasr, originally from Lebanon, has appeared at several other final tables at major tournaments, although this was his first time to finish this high at the WSOP.
3rd Place: Mike Davis, $68,630
A few hands later, Mike Davis went out when he moved his last chips in with A-4. Chi Chang had plenty of chips and called the small raise with 9-7. A seven flopped and Davis - the CEO of a grocery chain - was sacked as the third-place finisher.

Runner-up: Chi Chang, $137,265
That left Quinn Do to battle Chi Chang for the gold bracelet. Most interesting was the fact that neither had ever played in the WSOP. After several events in which tournament veterans finished high in the money, this event was certain to have a rookie winner.

When heads-up play began, Quinn Do enjoyed a 2-to-1 chip lead - 630,000 to 315,000. Limits were 15,000-30,000. An hour later, Do increased his lead to 3-to-1. Witnessing the two rivals play was like watching ice melt. But if Chang's stack was melting, Do's was becoming a giant iceberg. A slow but steady stream of chips flowed from Chang's stack over to Do, until Chang had enough and was forced to move his last chips into the pot in a losing battle. Do's winning hand was A-7 of clubs, which flopped a nut flush.

Runner-up Chi Chang is 43-years old. The early chip leader normally plays $40-80 cash games. This was his first appearance at the WSOP, good for $137,265.

1st Place: Quinn Do, $265,975
Quinn Do was surrounded by several supporters, including John Phan and Liz Lieu. Do later stated that both Phan and Lieu had given him tournament advice. Whatever they said, it certainly worked.

As Do collected $265,975 for first place, he snapped on the coveted gold bracelet awarded to all WSOP champions. "This is really beautiful," he said. "I am more into the bracelet than anything else."

Afterward, Quinn Do departed the Rio Pavilion's tournament arena and made the long trek back to the Rio. For Do, the carpeted boulevard was not that "bad beat highway." It was instead, the shining avenue of a new poker champion.

View final results.

Tournament reporting by Nolan Dalla / worldseriesofpoker.com