Husband and Wife Final Table Fable

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Jerry Walter is a 53-year-old unemployed plumber from Granville, Illinois with bills to pay like everybody else. When traditional ways of earning cash dried up, he and his poker-playing wife Kathy decided to try to do something a little bit different: win their way to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) through a qualifying tournament held at the Horseshoe Casino in  Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Having earned a few bucks playing in local poker tournaments, they used their bankroll to finance a spur-of-the-moment trip to Council Bluffs, driving across the border and down through the northwestern corner of what is unofficially known as The Tall Corn State.

Once at the casino, Jerry went busto in the first tourney he entered, but undaunted, immediately registered for another satellite with a field of fifty players. At the end of play, he was the last man standing.

Kathy, meanwhile, had entered a different satellite with a field of 90 players, and she also managed to come in first, earning the husband and wife team 2 spots in a final table of 10 players all vying for the WSOP prize package.

Originally, it had been determined only the top 5 at the final table would be paid, yet in a fortunate twist it was decided that everyone should pocket some cash for their trouble and the payout structure for the $212,000 prize pool was changed to insure all the finalists involved would finish in the money.

Kathy, the sole woman at the table, began play short stacked with only $15,000 in chips. As a comparison, Jerry began with $138,600 in chips, so the odds were against Kathy form the very beginning.

Even so, Jerry was psyched and was quoted as saying, “This is our first big event. I was holding no great expectations. We’ve never done anything like this in our lives and it was unbelievable.”

After nearly two hours of intense play, Phil Mader was the first player eliminated, finishing 10th. A couple of hands later, Jeff Banghart pushing in with pocket 5s went out 9th. Jerry Walter who came up with a 6 on the flop to go with his pocket 6s knocked out Jeff Bryan in 8th.

Then Kathy Walter was out in 7th place, winning $10,000 for her solid play.

“If there was an MVP of the tournament, it would be Kathy,” Jerry Walter told reporters later. “She never had more than $30,000 in chips through the entire thing.”

Bernard Lee went out 6^th, setting up the final battle by the remaining five.

Soon, Walter was in a heads-up battle for first place, pitting his slightly under $100,000 stack against the $800,000 held by professional poker player Jovan Sudar from Omaha.

Walter played the best poker of his life, and at one point was in the lead, but Sudar prevailed for the win.

Walter collected $53,025 for second, which Kathy referred to as a godsend.

All in all, not a bad day for the husband and wife team with a solid one-two punch. With their tenacity and skill, expect to see them at WSOP table in the very near future.

Final Results:

1          Jovan Sudar (Omaha, NE, USA)          $95,455

2          Jerry Walter (Granville, IL, USA)          $53,025

3          Derek Masek (Lincoln, NE, USA)          $31,815

4          Jack Do (Dakota Dunes, SD, USA)          $21,210

5          Michael Sortino (Papillon, NE, USA)          $10,605