Big Surprise Winner

November 19, 2008

The Turlock Poker Room is the last place that you would have thought that you would see a big winner. However, that is exactly where the second place winner came from in the World Series of Poker Event. People were so busy looking at the other players, the big name players, that they missed Joe Fernandez, co-owner of the Turlock Poker Room almost take it all.

Fernandez said that he enjoys playing poker but doesn’t get much of a chance to play these days. He said that he has been so busy working on getting the poker room up and running that he hasn’t had a chance to work on his game or play any tournaments. He managed to get into this one and was thrilled that he could not only play, but come so close to winning it all.

He took second place in a poker game that was two days of hard playing, and walked away with $12,463 for his hard work. He says that it is his best ever finish in a major event. He won surrounded by almost 150 players at the $500 buy-in WSOP Circuit No Limit Hold’em Championship at Harrah's Harvey's Lake Tahoe on November 9th.

Fernandez was fourth in chip count coming into the final table, and he thought for sure that his time was limited there. He was sitting next to Jon Schwartz, who had a chip pile of $406,600 – while he sat there with his $77,900. He decided to come out strong and immediately won the first hand of the game. He then proceeded to knock out the other players one by one to take the second place finish. It was a final round that put Schwartz in first and Fernandez in second.