Kang Crippled

[user75032]

What a hand we had heading into the last break. Yoshihiro Tasaka raised to 36,000 from the button preflop. Action was next on Brian Kang, who reraised to 120,000 total. After Hidenari Shiono passed, Tasaka put in a third raise by signalling once again for the all-in triangle.

There was some confusion as Kang asked for a count. Tasaka thought Kang called and therefore quickly flipped over his cards, showing {A-Hearts}

. The raise back to Kang was an additional 316,000 to call.

Kang, who had earlier been warned not to expose his hand as he pondered calling a large bet from Hidenari Shiono, requested that Tasaka's hand be declared dead. TD Danny McDonagh ruled that his hand was still live, and the cards would stay open. He assessed a one-round (three hands) penalty to Tasaka at the conclusion of the hand.

Kang looked pained as he tried to figure out what to do, armed with the knowledge of Tasaka's hole cards. He tanked for almost five minutes, then decided that he had to play and announced "Call," showing {K-Spades}

.

His hand brought a murmur of astonishment from the gallery as Kang was behind and would be left with only 75,000 chips if he lost the hand. Kang turned his back to the table, unable to watch what was transpiring. The flop {6-Diamonds}

missed both players, but Kang paired up on the turn with the {K-Hearts}

. He needed to duck just three cards on the river -- the ace of spades, the ace of diamonds and the ace of clubs. As the dealer burned and turned, Tasaka, who was out of his seat, shouted "ACE!" at the top of his lungs.

And it worked! The river was the {A-Clubs}

, bringing a roar from the Japanese side of the gallery. Tasaka jubilantly hugged several of his supporters as the dealer swept a pot of over one million chips to his seat.

Tags: Brian Kang Yoshihiro Tasaka