LITTLE DEUCE COUP!
$8M win off pair of 2’s
A New Jersey card shark won the World Series of Poker’s $8.1 million jackpot — with a measly pair of deuces.
After two weeks of playing among 7,200 hopefuls, Brigantine resident Scott Blumstein, 25, was one of two players left at the table in the Texas Hold ’ Em main event early Sunday in Las Vegas.
Blumstein won on the last card flipped over in the round — the two of hearts — which teamed up with the deuce of diamonds he was holding to give him a pair and beat out his final opponent.
“A normally inconsequential deuce just changed my life!’’ crowed Blumstein, who was participating in the tournament’s main event for the first time.
The rookie had been accompanied by his parents — and his sports psychologist, Elliot Roe.
“I was going to need you if that duece [sic] didn’t come,” Blumstein later tweeted out to his cardshark shrink.
Going into the final draw, Blumstein’s rival and fellow main-event rookie, Dan Ott of Altoona, Pa., had the edge with an ace of diamonds and an eight of diamonds.
Per game rules, players get to use five community cards along with two of their own to form the best five-card hand.
The first four community cards were laid on the table — a jack of spades, six of spades, five of hearts and a seven of hearts — but neither player could use them to muster even a pair.
Then the fifth and final card, known as “the river,” was flipped.
That fateful two of hearts gave Blumstein a pair, and that’s all it took to win.
He dropped to his knees at the draw.
“This is the holy grail for me, and somehow my first time, I captured it,” Blumstein later told the Las Vegas Sun.
Ott admitted that he “didn’t expect to lose” but took his secondplace finish in stride — likely because of the not-so-shabby runner-up prize: $4.7 million.
In addition to $8.1 million, Blumstein, who graduated with an accounting degree from Temple University, also received a diamond championship bracelet.