Brian Luo recorded his first live tournament cash less than five years ago, earning a small payout in a $1,600 Deepstack event at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Since then, the 29-year-old has quickly established himself in the East Coast tournament scene and in Las Vegas, racking up over $2,500,000 in earnings across numerous five- and six-figure scores.
Luo added another major score to his already-impressive resume today, winning the $1,700 WSOPC Atlantic City Main Event for his second WSOP Circuit Ring. Luo outlasted a 698-entry field, defeating Salvatore Evola heads-up to win the $189,145 top prize.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Luo told PokerOrg in the aftermath of his victory. “I just ran so good to get here. It’s just a dream. Everyone was so tough.”
Luo led 79 players returning for Day 2 of the Main Event. A few early setbacks saw him grind a middling stack for most of the day until a late-night heater propelled him back to the top of the counts just in time for the final table.
Luo spoke on his mindset and how he was able to take some of the pressure off of himself going into Monday's final day.
“I really tried to tell myself, ‘Every hand is a new hand’. In terms of what’s in my stack, I’m attached to it emotionally, but I can’t let that affect what I do the next hand. Every single decision is one hand at a time. As long as I keep reminding myself of that, I’m kind of able to push back on that emotional attachment to chip leading. You can’t think about that too much.
“That’s how I’ve always approached it. That’s how I love to approach poker. I think it’s such an interesting game. Every hand’s a new puzzle.”
Gutsy call against a big stack
Luo was put to the test soon after the final table began.
After losing the first all-in of the day to Brian Lombardi, he was soon faced with a difficult decision against eventual runner-up Salvatore Evola, who held the second-largest stack at the time.
Facing a huge bet on the river holding pocket nines on a queen-high runout, Luo made a gutsy call. If he was wrong, he would go from chip leading to being among the smaller stacks at the final table. Instead, Evola was forced to show a nine-high bluff, and Luo re-established a dominant chip lead.
“Honestly, a lot of clouds in my mind,” Luo said of his thought process during the hand. “I came into the day knowing I had a chip lead to preserve. At the same time, I got to be okay with going out in 9th and looking like an idiot. That’s just how poker goes sometimes. I had that mindset going in.
"He’d been playing a lot of hands and showing down some crazy ones. But he’s a smart player. I believe he’s doing it very deliberately.
“So many thoughts,” Luo continued. “His small turn bet was a little bit suspicious. I felt it was more likely he’d go bigger on the turn if he had a decent hand like a queen. I thought maybe it was a draw. A lot of people might give up that spot. He seemed like he was ready to go for it. He could have a lot of hands. I just thought there was enough bluffs for me to call profitably.
“It was not an easy call,” Luo added.
Part-timer adds to his reputation
It took well over an hour before anyone was eliminated at the final table. Eventually Jake Dynes was sent to the rail in 9th place after taking a bad beat from Yuriy Kudrynskyy and from there the field rapidly dwindled.
Luo dispatched Michael Lavin in 8th, winning a flip with ace-king against Lavin’s pocket jacks. After Raymond Uy lost a flip to Patrick Martorella to bow out in 7th, Luo eliminated Martorella himself, significantly extending his lead.
One of the most experienced players at the final table, Michael Bohmerwald, had done a great job laddering up to this point after starting the final table with the shortest stack. His Main Event finally came to an end after turning top pair against Lombardi, only for Lombardi to hit a gutshot on the river.
Lombardi himself was next to go, with Luo eliminating both him and Yuriy Kudrynskyy in 3rd to take roughly a 9:1 chip lead going into heads-up play against Evola.
Evola doubled up in the first hand of heads-up play but it wasn’t enough to stop Luo from steamrolling.
A few hands later the two players were all-in preflop again, with Luo’s ace-deuce suited holding up against Evola’s queen-six to win the final hand of the tournament.
Despite having no concrete plans for his next poker stop, Luo made it clear that it won’t be long before he finds his way back to the felt.
“I’m always going to play what I can. I’m balancing a pretty intensive full-time job with poker. I’m not gonna be at every stop like all the grinders. I’ll do what I can. Maybe Borgata, I might sneak in for an event or two if I have time. I don’t know if I have too many other plans. I love going to Vegas in the summers.”
