Lou Garza Snatches Second WSOP Bracelet from the Brink in Heads-Up Showdown

The American took down Event #14: $25,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha/No-Limit Hold’em for a career-best score of $1,302,233 after topping a field of 245 entries.

That created a prize pool of $5,757,500 to fight over with only the one seven-figure prize.

In his winner’s interview, Lou Garza said:

“It feels great, but we’ve got some more work to finish off. We’re not done yet. It means everything to have family and close friends here supporting me.” 

After facing a four-to-one deficit against Ben Lamb, Garza explained how he had nothing to lose and was ready to just go for it.

“Honestly, I kind of expected it. Once we got heads up, I knew I had to flip the switch, get aggressive, and just go for it with nothing to lose.”

Action Recap

When the action resumed to begin Day 4, Ben Lamb had around half of the chips in play. Garza was a comfortable second but he’d dipped out in the seat draw and found himself sitting directly to Lamb’s right.

Lamb continued to extend his lead but Garza was also able to find good spots to stay in contention, including knocking out Brandon Mitchell with pocket kings.

That left four players at the table but the short stacks were crumbling quickly. Robert Cowen exited the event shortly after Mitchell when his aces got cracked in a PLO round by Lamb.

Chongxian Yang was almost out of chips himself and watched on gratefully as he laddered up in what was a $177K pay jump.

As soon as the blinds increased moments later, Yang raised A♥ Q♣ 7♥ 4♠ from the button, Lamb folded and Garza jammed around 5 big blinds effectively. Yang called it off and the board ran out in favour of the American, taking us to heads-up.

Ben Lamb started the battle with a four-to-one advantage but Garza made moves right from the first hand. The NL segment went incredibly well, so well, in fact, that Garza held the lead by the end of it.

Lamb, having come back from only two blinds on the previous day, clearly had a fight on his hands. But fight back he did and the PLO rounds switched the advantage back to Lamb.

The battle was intense and the rail was enthralled as both players showed fearlessness. Garza even started to show his bluffs to Lamb after they got through.

After a period of few swings, it was Lamb’s stack which began to shrink. This was compounded when he failed to pull the trigger on the river on a key hand to leave Garza holding a four-to-one advantage of his own for the first time.

It was all over a few hands later when Lamb went with king-ten for his last 10 blinds and Garza woke up with pocket aces to get the job finished.

Garza was overjoyed to join Benny Glaser as the day’s champions and Lamb behaved like a perfect gentleman in defeat, shaking his opponent’s hand and giving him a hug.

Event #14: $25,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha/No-Limit Hold’em Final Table Results

Mark Patrickson

Professional Poker Journalist

Mark Patrickson is a poker journalist with over ten years of experience. He writes for VIP-Grinders.com, sharing his deep knowledge of poker. He creates interesting content about poker strategy, trends, and news for poker fans worldwide. [more]