Don Topel’s Greed is costly on Face the Ace
A couple of posts back, I wrote about how the new NBC show Face the Ace is struggling mightily in the ratings department. In fact, for the second straight week Face the Ace finished dead last in ratings among shows in the Saturday night, 9 pm - 10 pm time slot. But I still managed to catch clips of the show on the Internet and noticed that the format isn’t actually that bad. What’s even more interesting is that Face the Ace goes to show how much greed can cost you in poker.
This was the case with a contestant by the name of Don Topel who decided that $200,000 wasn’t enough, and that he needed to go for the $1 million prize instead. Topel could have walked away with the $200k if he would have just quit after victories in rounds 1 and 2. But Topel chose to risk this money in order to go for the $1 million prize. And while I can’t fault him for wanting to grab the million, trying to beat 3 professional poker players in a row in heads-up play is a lot to ask of anybody - let alone an amateur!
Done Topel wasn’t fazed though and he went against former WPT Player of the Year Gavin Smith in his quest for 7 figures. In the end, Smith was able to knock Topel out with a pair of aces after the board failed to help Don get anything with his K-5 combo. Overall though, I think Don Topel gave Gavin Smith a good game, but it wasn’t enough. And I have to say that I personally would have walked away with the $200,000 after round 2.