Thursday, March 9, 2017 6:36 PM Local Time
Albert Ng Wins $365 No-Limit Hold'em
Northern California engineer wins first ring and $14,585 in first Circuit cash.
Bell Gardens, Ca. (March 9, 2017) — As an electrical engineer in the San Jose area, Albert Ng doesn’t have much time to play poker. When he does get some time off from his job, he packs as much poker into his life as he can.
Ng flew down to Los Angeles from San Jose on Wednesday morning after busting out of a big event in the Bay area late on Tuesday night. He immediately registered for the $365 no-limit hold’em event when he got into town and outlasted a 187-entry field to win $14,585 and his first gold ring.
“It feels pretty good,” said Ng. “I got knocked out of the Shooting Star, so I flew down here to play this and just kind of ran it up. I wanted to fly in on Tuesday, but I busted too late and there were no flights. I just took the earliest flight on Wednesday.”
During his heads-up match with Lee Gale, Ng had his registration ticket for his next event sitting on his food tray. He was already registered for the $365 no-limit hold’em six-max event, which had late registration close during his final table.
As soon as he had defeated Gale, he took photos for the media and then immediately took his seat in his next tournament without missing a beat. His stack in the six-max had been put in play and blinded down, but that didn’t stop him from taking his shot.
“That’s kind of my thing though,” he said. “I just kind of like to cram everything in and just play as much as possible.”
It’s a hectic poker schedule, but with his time-consuming job, he wants to spend as much time at the poker table when he’s not spending time in the office.
“I want to try and play as much as possible,” said Ng. “I took three days off because there was the WPT here and there was here and I was planning on going up to Thunder Valley. So I planned on just bouncing back and forth and seeing what is easiest for me.
“I don’t really have time to play and travel the Circuit, but I try my best. I usually play everything in California and then Reno and Tahoe. Whenever I can take a vacation, I will go. I will try and find the most packed schedules and just try to figure out how to fly in and out and just play in them. I try to play as many as possible.”
Unfortunately for Ng, he won’t be able to spend much more time at the Bicycle Casino. He won’t be able to play the main event because he has to fly back on Sunday evening because of a work commitment on Monday.
That won’t stop him from trying to get in the action, however.
“We’ll see. I might find some friends and try and buy some action and hopefully have a sweat,” said Ng. “I can’t play so might as well buy some action and see how it goes.”
Ng doesn’t play professionally, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any ability. Gale held the chip lead most of the final table, but Ng picked up one of Gale’s tendencies that he was able to exploit later on to propel him towards the title.
“I found out that he tries to hero call a lot,” said Ng. “So when I have a strong hand, I have to overbet it. The hand where I took the chip lead I turned a straight and there was a missed flush draw. So I shoved the river to represent the missed flush draw and he called with two pair.”