Veteran cash gamer claims gold in WSOP $3K Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Max

Name: Luis "Louie" Calvo
Nationality: American
Birthplace: n/a
Current Residence: Miami, Florida
Age: 41
Profession: Poker Pro
Number of WSOP Cashes: 3
Number of WSOP Final Table Appearances: 1
Number of WSOP Gold Bracelet Victories (with this tournament): 1
Best Previous WSOP Finish: 74th – Event #42: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT - World Championship ($107,950)
Career WSOP Earnings: $472,799
Personal Facts: Calvo rarely plays tournaments, preferring cash-game action. Calvo, a former serviceman, is married with two children, Reese and Vinny. Calvo comes from a tight-knit group of Miami poker pros that includes Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi.

Louie Calvo came out on top of a 630-player field in Event #49: $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Handed at the 2107 World Series of Poker to win $362,185 and his first gold bracelet.

Once the official final table had been reached, the first player to be knocked out was Gerhard Schleicher, who got his stack in on the turn with two pair against Calvo's nut flush and failed to improve on the river. The next to depart was Aleksei Altshuller, who flopped bottom two pair and got his chips in against Rudolph Sawa's top two pair and got no help from the rest of the board. The fourth-place finisher was Eric Hicks, who entered the unofficial final table extremely short and saw a meteoric rise in his chip stack in a series of double-ups and huge pots before Calvo took the overwhelming majority of his stack in one hand, and Sawa dispatched him on the very next one with aces against Hicks' pair of threes. Mark Reilly became the third-place finisher when he got his chips in on the flop with a combo draw against Calvo's pair of jacks and got no help from the deck on the turn or river.

Heads-up play between Calvo and Sawa didn't last long, and it all ended when all the chips went in on the flop with Sawa holding an open-ended straight draw and eight-high flush draw against Calvo's pocket aces and nut-flush draw. The turn and river were running queens, which changed nothing for either player, and meant the pot and the title belonged to Calvo.

"It's so exciting, what a feeling. I've been playing for 18 years, professionally for 17," Calvo said as he explained that he had spent most of his career focusing on cash games and had entered very few major tournaments. "Honestly, I just played my game the whole time. I picked my spots," he said with an uncontainable grin.

The atmosphere at the final table started out lively and enthusiastic, thanks in large part to Eric Hicks, whose good-natured, happy-go-lucky excitement drew more than a few of his friends to join his girlfriend, who had "GO ERIC" written across her exposed midriff, in cheering for him from the rail with beers in hand. Hicks spun up quite a stack and had the chip lead at several different points before he ultimately busted, and his rail exploded with every pot he dragged. When he departed, his rail went with him, and the energy around the table dropped to a lull. However, Calvo was soon joined by a star-studded rail that included his longtime friend Michael Mizrachi, who stayed until Calvo, a fellow Floridian, had finished the job.

1. Luis Calvo, U.S. - $362,185
2. Rudolph Sawa, U.S. - $223,812
3. Mark Reilly, Ireland - $149,258
4. Eric Hicks, U.S. - $101,513
5. Aleksei Altshuller, Russia - $70,438
6. Gerhard Schleicher, Germany - $49,885

(Article courtesy of World Series of Poker)