2009 World Series of Poker – Day 13 From the Rail

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

Sometimes the stories just write themselves. They appear before your eyes and all I need to do is make sure you get the facts straight. Yesterday on the rail was one of those which I won’t forget.

Brian Lemke entered the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event with exactly zero WSOP cashes to his credit but was feeling confident entering this year’s series. I spoke with him several times before the event, he was feeling good and ready to make some noise. The $5,000 NLHE field was stacked heavy with both live and online pros wielding deep stacks. Every time I saw him in the hall he would shrug his shoulders, “I’m still in and working”.

As with just about every tournament so far this year, the structure forced the players to grind it out until the very end because they never reached their final nine. 17 players remained at 3am with a restart time of noon on Monday. Not much rest time before playing for the bracelet. Nearly 5 hours later they made the call to move all 10 onto the ESPN360.com feature table instead of waiting for the “official” nine.

Continuing the theme of nothing easy, Lemke would have to go through David “The Dragon” Pham, Isaac Baron, Mike “SowerUNCC” Sowers, Tom Keller and Liya Gerasimova. They all dropped one after the other until 15 hours from the start of the day only Brian Lemke was left sitting at the table taking pictures with his chips and a shiny new WSOP bracelet.

They have already given over a dozen bracelet so far in the 2009 World Series of Poker, some will wonder why a first time casher, first time bracelet winner gets space on the site. It’s not because I’ve known him for quite awhile or that he comes from my my hometown. It’s because of he’s a low key player and his cousin was known to many. Lemke had most of the poker media, poker players, and a rowdy bunch from Philadelphia in his corner.

Lemke’s cousin Justin Shronk was well loved and respected in the poker media, he passed away suddenly just weeks before the WSOP was kick off at far too young an age. I did not know him as well as most but was able to spend a week sitting side by side during the Borgata Poker Open and have heard all the stories. Those are the reasons so many people were hanging out in the Amazon until after 3am hoping to see Lemke take it down for Shronk. As he said in his post-game interview, “He was with me the whole time – the entire time. I know he brought that queen for me. I miss him and that bracelet is dedicated to him, my family, my grandma, and his mom.”

I think Joe Sebok said it best on his Poker Road blog:

“He battled and battled and when he finally won that final hand, coming from behind to take the bracelet, he came over and gave me a huge hug and said, “You know why I won this, don’t you? You know.” The answer was emblazoned on his shirt, “Got Shronk?” I just told him that yeah, I did know. It was a really beautiful moment and I absolutely teared up a little from it. Sometimes things do fall the way they should. Sometimes the good guys do come out on top. They are victorious and things seem just perfect with the world. Tonight was one of those nights and I couldn’t help but soak it in as Brian posed for all his pictures with his new bracelet. I just couldn’t be prouder of him.”

More pictures after the jump: