Leonzio Plays Blind, Busts Hallay in his First Hand

Frank Visser

Level 11 : Blinds 1,000/1,500, 1,500 ante

Axel Hallay just sat down at the end of late registration with a fresh stack of 30,000. He made the raise to 3,000 from under the gun before Marco Leonzio made it 6,000 to go, claiming to not have seen his cards yet. The action folded to Will Kassouf in the small blind, who smooth-called.

''If you've got it, you got it,'' exclaimed Hallay before he put the rest of his chips in. ''He's using my line!'' Kassouf responded. While the two were bantering away, Leonzio made the call. Meanwhile, Kassouf had lost interest in the pot and mucked his hand.

Axel Hallay: A?Q?
Marco Leonzio: K?6?

Leonzio had not lied, he was indeed playing blind and put 30,000 chips at risk without looking at his cards. While the flop of 7?9?7? was dealt Hallay stated, ''A king will come on the river.'' The 5? was a safe turn and the river also made Hallay's prediction fail to come true. However, the 6? still gave Leonzio the best hand as he was the only one to make a pair.

Leonzio stood up and celebrated while the whole table had a good laugh about the situation. Leonzio added another starting stack to his already towering stack and is now playing triple the average.