Randy “nanonoko” Lew is one of the most profitable, and well-known online poker players in the game today. Lew started out his online poker career like many other did, simply dabbling in cash games and figuring out the “how to” of online poker. Lew now consistently achieves the Supernova Elite status on the massive online poker site PokerStars, and is also a member of the Team PokerStars Poker pros. Lew was stuck in a tough spot after Black Friday though, as he could no longer play the game that was actually his full time job, and he ended up moving to Canada in order to continue playing.
This past week though, Lew decided to dabble a bit more in the live tournament circuit, and found himself at the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau’s Main Event. The event drew in some big names from the poker world, including one of the biggest in Phil Ivey, who was sent home during Day 2 of the action. While Lew has played over 5 million online poker hands since August of 2008, he was not nearly as used to playing on the live tournament circuit, so it was a different feel you could assume.
Fortunately, Lew knows the game of poker incredibly well, and he found himself heading into the final table of the event. Lew was nearly sent home in 9th though, as he was all in with his Queens and was able to hit the third queen to give him a nice double up and send him to the final table against the pocket Aces of David Steicke. He had his work cut out for him though, as he started the final table with the fewest chips out of any of the players at the table, and had some building to do in order to become a serious contender.
He did what he does best at the final table though, and found himself grinding it out and building up his stack over time. When all was said and done it was him against Jimmy Pan for the heads up match, and he had a slight advantage to start the action. A few hands later, Lew found himself at risk with pocket sixes, and was against two over cards in the A-9 that Pan was holding. Lew hit a six to give himself a set, and grabbed the chip lead back. He went on to hold off his opponent from any type of comeback, and took down the grand prize of $484,617. Pan got a nice prize for his efforts as well, and he went home with $304,106.