Scott Eckert Picks up Deadwood Title
Scott Eckhert (Credit: Heartland Poker Tour)
Deadwood, South Dakota was the latest stop on the Heartland Poker Tour. Deadwood, for poker historians, is a dangerous place to play the game. That is it was for a man named Wild Bill Hickock. In August of 1876, he entered Saloon #10 and found a game in progress. He sat in an empty chair with his back to the door. This proved to be a fatal selection. Several minutes later, Jack McCall walked in and shot Wild Bill dead. According to legend, Bill was holding two black aces, two black eights and a nine of diamonds, which has become known to the world as The Dead Man's Hand. Of course, when the HPT pulled into Deadwood on October 14, 2007, they found danger of a different sort. Scott Eckert pulled the trigger on the final table and knocked out his opponents in a mere 64 hands. The fella from Fargo, ND brought some friends and family with him. Considering the drive from Fargo to Deadwood is over 8 and one half hours, that's quite impressive. Even more impressive was Scott's move from short stack to leader of the pack. The painting contractor was over the moon after his win. However, James Mutchler, the eventual runner-up, was still annoyed by a mistake he made early on to double Eckert up. In the first couple of hands, Eckert went all-in after the flop of J,9,9 for his remaining 250k. Mutchler, who's made the finals at an HPT championship a total of three times, called the all-in, thinking he held a Q,9 instead of a Q,8. Ouch! The third place finisher was local man, De Glassgow. Glassgow, aged 59, is a former Custer County sheriff and dressed the part of Deadwood gunslinger, complete with leather vest, boots and black cowboy hat. At three-handed play, he had a commanding chip lead but missed completing his gut-shot straight draw with two cards to come. Eckert, who has never won an event like this before, was amazed at “how it turned out.” He admitted that he wasn't “really sure what to do with all the money,” but hinted that he might “play in some bigger tournaments.” Here are the final results: 1) Scott Eckert - $64,133 2) James Mutchler - $32,066 3) De Glassgow - $20,614 4) Jayson Smith - $16,033 5) Shane Blakney - $13,743 6) Tom Kruger - $11,452