Deal a Helping Hand recently had another installment of their charity poker tournament this time to benefit the Xavier High School batch of 1983 and for eventual winner Charlene Escaler, it was a case of everything happening for a reason.
The day of the tournament was supposed to be a separate charity casino night event for her high school alumnae from Poveda but some miscommunication with the organizers led their group to cancel the event. Since her husband was playing the DHH event already, she chose to play the tournament as well much to the detriment of the other players.
Midway through the tournament, and at the end of the rebuy/add-on period, Xavier’s 1983 High School batch raised over Php 130,000 (US$ 2,600) for their various projects. The Deal a Helping Hand series topped the Php 1,000,000 mark for charity events,
Escaler made quick work of her opponents as she made her way to the final table and seemed to be awaiting the showdown with, restaurateur Brian Tiu and it was Tiu that crippled Escaler’s chip stack with his improbable quad queens with three queens on the board, the last of which gave Escaler the nut flush setting up the show down. Both players mowed down their final table opponents. Edmund Solilaspsi finished his day in 10th place and won a Panasonic cordless phone. John-C Syquia, one of the organizers of the event, ended his run at 9th place which was worth a Brother’s 3-in-1 printer. Singer Ross Calixterio won 7th place and a mobile phone while Dexter Brillo was in 7th and won a portable DVD player. Stevie Liao won an iHome iPod dock for his troubles finishing at 6th place. Another Calixterio, January, did better than her husband Ross as she finished 5th place and won a Kodak Digital Camera. Fourth place was awarded to the last Xavierian, Charles Chua. Third place went to Jason Lim and trip for two to Hong Kong for his finish.
Momentum seemed to swing towards Tiu with the chips coming his way but there was a key hand which halted that momentum and swung it backwards. Escaler pushed all-in with her A-3 offsuit and Tiu calling immediately with his A-8 off making her a 2-1 underdog preflop. With the flop 10-9-6, Tiu raised to the lead even more with his inside straight draw moving him further ahead 3-1. The 4 on the turn wasn’t the help either players was needing. But when a 6 came on the river causing them to split the pot, it seemed that that deflated Tiu a little.
A shot at redemption seemed to be at hand a couple of hands later with Tiu pushing all-in and quick call from Escaler, Tiu showed AKd while Escaler had A2h making Tiu a 70% dominating favorite as the flop came but with the Q-9-2 with two diamonds the percentages moved to Escaler with her slim lead of 52-48 to win the hand at that point and when the turn showed 7c, Escaler pushed her advantage to 75-25 to win and with the non-diamond Jack coming on the river, Escaler was now the massive chip lead. The very next hand saw Tiu, out of necessity, push all-in with his 8-4 offsuit but to his surprise, Escaler opened a whopper of a hand with her AK, and with a King coming on the flop, the end was near for Tiu who needed running 8’s or 4’s to salvage the hand and his tournament life, but neither was coming on the turn with a 9 coming and then a six on the river. Giving the tournament and a 32’ Samsung LCD TV to Escaler while Tiu had a trip for two to Hong Kong for his second place finish.
Stay tuned for our next DHH event.
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