- Slot common wanders upstairs, enters $500 Thriller Bounty event
- 88-year-old first-timer runs deep, finishes 14th of two,628
- Fan favourite cashes about $10K as Heater rolls on.
An surprising contender captivated railbirds at one of many Gulf Coast’s largest poker festivals on Friday. Linda Hammons, 88, a great-grandmother who had by no means earlier than performed a hand of stay event poker, ran deep in a $1 million assured occasion on the Beau Rivage Heater competition. Hammons virtually reached the ultimate desk earlier than exiting in 14th place, The Biloxi Solar-Herald studies.
Poker face: Linda Hammons shortly turned a fan favourite at Biloxi’s Beau Rivage On line casino late final week, due to a deep end in a $1 million occasion. (Picture: Beau Rivage Resort & On line casino)
Hammons, from Dadeville, Ala., mentioned she initially wandered into the poker site after discovering the slot machines she normally performed on the on line casino flooring had been eliminated.
As soon as event organizers confirmed she knew the principles of Texas maintain ’em, she paid the $500 buy-in and took a seat at one of many sprawling ballroom tables.
‘I Confirmed ’Em’
The occasion she entered, the Thriller Bounty No-Restrict Maintain ’em event, drew 2,628 entries and carried a complete prize pool of greater than $1 million. Hammons’ run earned her $8,400 for her official end, plus $1,700 in bounty cash, for a complete payday of roughly $10,100.
“I confirmed ’em,” she informed the Solar-Herald afterward.
Hammons’ deep run shortly made her a fan favourite on social media, with commentators cheering the octogenarian’s unbelievable ascent by means of a area stacked with skilled gamers from throughout the nation and past.
“Go get ’em, gramma,” one viewer wrote.
It wasn’t all plain crusing for Hammons, who acknowledged that she hadn’t mastered some bodily facets of the sport, together with chip dealing with, which she joked was difficult due to her lengthy, cherry-red nails.
Granny on a Heater
The “heater” got here to an finish when she jammed all in with Okay-9, solely to run into pocket queens, prompting loud cheers of assist as she headed to the rail.
The occasion was finally chopped by Randall Chase Cummins and double WSOP bracelet winner Michael Lech, every taking house $115,136.
In the meantime, Beau Rivage employees tracked Hammons down – she was nonetheless staying on the resort with household – to current her with a certificates recognizing her 14th-place end, and even paid the buy-in for a subsequent one-day occasion she deliberate to enter.
The Beau Rivage Heater, operating January 7–19 on the Beau Rivage Resort & On line casino, is likely one of the Gulf Coast’s marquee poker sequence, that includes dozens of occasions with greater than $5.5 million in assured prize swimming pools. The sequence contains a mixture of buy-ins starting from a number of hundred to over a thousand {dollars}, culminating in a $1.5 million assured major occasion.
