Spokane’s Lucas Jumalon set to battle Finland’s Lauri Saaskilahti for $10 million in the World Series of Poker’s Main Event
LAS VEGAS − The second night of the final table was full of surprises and fast exits.
The night started off with Lauri Saaskilahti’s support crew yelling “olay, olay, olay, olay.” Greg Mueller’s army of red hat wearing Canadians chanting “FBT, FBT, FBT” (which stands for full-blown tilt), while the assortment of Spokane’s best poker players, Ferris high school graduates and close friends and family of Lucas stuck to a chant of their own:
“Ju-ju-jumaluu.”
Jumalon not only had a slew of Spokanites supporting him, he also wore a black shirt with a green raven etched across the front that undoubtedly beckoned him back to pristine fields of green grass.
The Circling Raven Golf Club at Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel sits on 620 acres of premium Palouse land. Laura Penney, the CEO of Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel, said she was surprised to see Jumalon don their logo Tuesday night.
“And as gratifying as that is, our hearts and support go to the people of Spokane and the surrounding communities,” Penney said in a statement. “His success is wonderful, and we hope it brings a sliver of hope during this tragedy.”
Maybe it was the decision to rep the hometown golf course or the Jumalon crew buzzing with electric energy, or even Spokane’s need for a sliver of hope in dark times, but whatever the reason, Jumalon won the very first hand of the game around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
With enthusiastic cheers behind him and the Lilac City on his back, Lucas cruised to the final round of two against Finland’s Lauri Saaskilahti at the Horseshoe Casino and Hotel.
He won the first hand of the game around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
And he didn’t stop there.
Around 5 p.m., Jumalon eliminated Jamie Shaevel. The California man whose support team all wore shirts that read “just a lighting salesman from Santa Monica,” pushed his 14.5 million worth of chips into the middle. Jumalon called.
While Shaevel and Jumalon both had kings, it was Jumalon’s 10 high card that narrowly beat out Shaevel’s six.
By 5:30 p.m., Jumalon had 265,500,000 chips. Thirty minutes later, he had 364,500,000 and Rami Hammoud was out. Feeling his big blinds dwindling, Hammoud raised the bet to 12,500,000 chips and when the flop came with an eight, a six and a two (all spades), Hammoud went all-in. The next two cards didn’t go his way and Jumalon’s high card Ace won.
Not only did Jumalon add a sizable chunk of chips to his pile, but at this point, he had 300 million more chips than the nearest competitor, Greg Mueller.
In the late 1990s, Ryan Thorpe used to train with Mueller when they were both professional hockey players. Thorpe spent five years playing hockey before a shoulder injury forced him into coaching. But for half of his career, Thorpe skated on the ice as a Spokane Chief. Because he was 17 when he was traded to Spokane in 1999, Thorpe spent his senior year of high school at Ferris, the same school Jumalon attended.
While Thorpe was rooting for Mueller to win, he had to give Jumalon credit .
“He’s holding his own,” Thorpe said. “He’s being aggressive when he needs to be aggressive …. Even yesterday (Monday), when he slipped up a little bit and gave a few chips away, you can sort of tell that he regrouped and knew what adjustments he needed to make to get those chips back up.”
Han Feng, who went all in with 25 million, had pocket aces and lost in rather hapless fashion. Incredibly, the last card laid down was a Queen, which gave Saaskilahti the straight he needed to crack Feng’s double aces.
Afterwards, players dropped in quick succession.
Michael Gagliano was up next. But not before the bout between Saaskilahti and Jumalon foreshadowed what was to come.
Like those before him, Saaskilahti was on the edge of elimination when Jumalon put 61 million into the pot.
“Talk to me,” Saaskilahti told Jumalon. “If you have it, you have it.”
And then Saaskilahti called. When the last card, a king of diamonds, was revealed, it was Saaskilahti’s pocket 10s that took down Jumalon’s pair of fours. The Finn’s bold choice dropped Jumalon by 95 million chips and put Saaskilahti within less than a 100 million chips of the Spokane native.
With Saaskilahti and Jumalon far ahead of the rest of the competition, Gagliano’s meager pile of 9.5 million meant he had to make a play, and soon, before he ran out of big blinds.
Gagliano’s king and queen appeared to narrowly hold the lead from the flop over Jumalon’s king and jack. But when the turn (the fourth card) was revealed to be a jack and the river (the fifth card) was a seven, Gagliano knew he had run out of luck. Still, Gagliano left with a prize of $2.75 million.
With only three players left, many assumed the night was over. But since it wasn’t even 7 p.m. yet, the game continued.
Mueller had 35 million chips, while Saaskilahti had 188 million and Jumalon had 329.5 million. Things weren’t looking great for the Canadian and he went all-in with a 10 and a four in hand after some deliberation with Saaskilahti. The flop gave Mueller the four he needed and two aces, but Saaskilahti had pocket kings. Mueller went home with $3.75 million and set up a one-on-one duel, or what’s known as a heads-up, between Saaskilahti and Jumalon. And unlike the late first night Monday, Tuesday’s play ended at 7 p.m.
Now the table is set for a Wednesday night showdown between Saaskilahti and Jumalon.
Saaskilahti brings 225 million chips into Wednesday’s meeting; Jumalon has 328 million.
Matt Bode, Jumalon’s coach, first met the Ferris grad when he was about 19 years old. Lucas’s father, Butch, was at the final table for a tournament in Pendleton, Oregon. Bode had a horse at that tournament, which meant he paid the buy-in for another player.
As Bode was watching Butch play against his horse, he started to notice that a young man kept whispering in Butch’s ear.
“I started talking to him to distract him from giving his dad any good advice,” Bode said. “Then, one thing led to another, and we started having a good conversation. I was like, “Oh, this kid kind of knows poker.”
Over time, the two grew closer until one day he was asked rather bluntly to be Lucas Jumalon’s coach. Today, he said he sees Jumalon as a younger brother. Bode is one of only a handful of poker players in Spokane to have ever won a bracelet at a World Series of Poker event. He won his bracelet while playing online poker in his dad’s basement in New Jersey during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What separates Lucas from the rest of the competition, according to Bode, is the time and energy he takes to prepare. Between the time Jumalon qualified for the final table to now, Bode said he and his coaching team have only given him one day off. They studied hand combinations, ran simulations and more every single day from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Before Jumalon even entered the World Series of Poker Main Event with approximately 9,200 others, Bode said his pupil sacrificed countless hours to study and perfect his craft. And while Bode is an accomplished professional poker player himself, once Jumalon made the final table, he felt like they needed backup. So they hired another coach and Bode willingly took up more of an “assistant coach” role.
“How many times does a team get to the NBA finals and a coach is passing off the torch?” Bode said. “It’s been different for me. But poker’s sort of one of those sports that there’s always going to be someone better.”
Plus, Bode said, they have a really good system set up. Fellow 22-year-old pro, Hayden Hetland, also known as “Big Red” because of his bright hair and beard, is the hype man when Jumalon’s feeling down. Bode is “the mental guy” who tries to calm Jumalon down if he’s high-strung by giving him tidbits of advice and reminding him of one word over and over again: “Onward.”
Meanwhile, the “head coach,” known as Pads, is all about strategy.
Going into day two, Han Feng held the chip lead and Bode considered him as the most experienced. Because of that, he was the likely choice for the person Jumalon should be the most concerned about. But like an oracle of ancient times, Bode said Tuesday afternoon that he was most worried about the man from Finland.
“It’s really that Lauri guy,” Bode said. “He’s kind of a wild card. He’s the one that can do the most damage. We just don’t know what he’s doing.”
But poker is a game where anything can happen. Wednesday night could be a six hour grind between two players at the top of their game or it could all be over in three hands.
Bode said his advice to Jumalon will be the same thing he’s told him countless times.
“You have to embrace butterflies,” Bode said. “Butterflies are one of those things that once you lose them, you shouldn’t be doing that sport or competing. Nervous tics aren’t bad things, they’re actually good. That means you’re in a spot that makes you uncomfortable. That means you’re growing as a human being. So the more he can just embrace the butterflies and embrace that nervous feeling, the better.”