Thursday, May 25, 2017 1:06 PM Local Time
Much to His Disbelief, Bubba Dukes Wins Turbo in NOLA
Trucking professional snags a ring and $18k in cash on his day off from the Main Event
Carey “Bubba” Dukes snagged one of the last few rings of the 2016/2017 WSOP Circuit season this past weekend at Harrah’s New Orleans. Dukes outlasted a field of 246 entries in the $365 Turbo, winning the ring and the top prize of $18,083.
Dukes is a 49-year-old trucking company owner from Marietta, Georgia by way of Lake City, South Carolina. He’s married with four children, and he’s currently working on his PhD. He’s a busy man, and his weekend of poker didn’t provide much time to relax, either.
After bagging up a big stack on Day 1A of the Main Event, Dukes had a free day on Saturday. The only ring event on the schedule for the day was the Turbo, and it’s not exactly Dukes’ preferred format.
“I wanted to play, but I suck so bad at Turbos,” he laughed. “I told my wife I was going to play cash, and if I won more than $400, I’d buy in. And I won like eight [hundred].”
With his wife’s blessing, Dukes entered the field, with 20-minute levels driving the action at a brisk pace. By the time they reached the final table around midnight, Dukes had a big lead and close to a third of the total chips in play.
None of the remaining players were especially deep-stacked at that point, though, and Dukes essentially treaded water until he found himself heads-up against David Daniels. Both stacks were short by the time they got there in the wee hours of the mornings, and Dukes ran over Daniels to win the volatile match.
“The deck ran over me.,” Dukes said. “I got smashed.”
The next day, Dukes rode his big Main Event stack to a 39th-place finish, adding close to $5,000 in additional winnings.