Aces Start It, Aces Finish It for Yake Wu
Sometimes, it takes a while before one gets dealt a decent poker hand in a poker tournament. Other times, it's a matter of minutes. But when Yake Wu looked down at pocket queens only minutes into the Day 1b of the Aussie Millions Main Event, his tournament was almost over.
With 300 big blinds to start with, it's rare to hear the words "all in-call" in a poker room when most players haven't even warmed their chairs yet. Wu, however, called with his queens on a ten-high double flush draw, only to double Heinz Schlueter who showed aces.
"I'm not afraid of busting, it's okay, it's normal, "Wu claimed. He was left with 4,000, just over one-tenth of the starting stack.
What makes his story impressing is that he bounced back. Then he got back down. Then he bounced back. Wu stayed in the tournament until Day 3, and his chip-measurement trended in sinusoids.
The above-mentioned encounter against Schlueter didn't leave any mark on Wu's subsequent play. He understood that while his stack got significantly diminished, he didn't have to panic.
"It's still 40 big blinds, you can do a lot of things," he said, adding: "I think a tournament is about surviving sometimes. Because when I call him, I'm ready to see aces or kings. And I did, but I was still alive – I still had a chance."
Wu is relatively a new face on the tournament circuit, but he managed to amass over $1 million in cashes in 2019. Before then, he had had only two small cashes to his name. Wu played cash games while he studied in the United Kingdom. He didn't have enough time to play tournaments, let alone travel around the world to compete in the major events.
That changed when he moved back home to Shanghai. Wu started a company which specializes in interim design and selling furniture.
"Right now, my company is very stable, so I have time [for tournaments]. I don't have to stay at the company; we still have a manager to run it. So I can choose from some games," Wu revealed.
Last year, Wu notched 38 cashes in eight countries (including China). He had already made it to Aussie Millions, competed at a few European Poker Tour stops, and made a summer trip to Las Vegas. That's where he got his breakthrough result, finishing 2nd in the Card Player Poker Tour Main Event for $336,497 on a final table that featured the likes of Andrey Pateychuk, Stephen Chidwick, and Chris Klodnicki.
So far, it looks like Wu's poker calendar won't be less packed in 2020. If anything, the opposite. Wu has plans to travel around most of the major stops, so he naturally couldn't miss the Aussie Millions. A ninth-place finish in the A$25k Challenge might have got him some more recognition from the top-level players.
Unfortunately for Wu, it wouldn't work out for him in the Main Event – even though he was able to regroup after the huge initial loss. It was a tournament full of coolers for Wu, whose run included kings cracked by queens and a set-under-set collision, among other clashes.
The final blow would be delivered somewhat symbolically–by pocket ace. It was Steve O'Dwyer who ended Wu's chances to cash in the Main Event. Wu had, of course, kings. But one might not see as many players taking the beats as casually as Wu. He doesn't complain. He doesn't stress out:
"It's normal in the tournaments. I love this game."