Age Makes No Difference for Randal Heeb and Tom Reynolds

By Matt Clark

The WPT Maryland event started with a look at the potential trend of players who have reached multiple World Poker Tour final tables doing so again. With the final table reached, WPT Champions Club member Art Papazyan is the only player among the final six to be playing in at least his second World Poker Tour final table.

A new storyline has emerged in the form of Randal Heeb (pictured above) and Tom Reynolds (pictured below). The two players are the top two stacks heading into today’s final table and share a few things in common.

In a relative rarity among WPT final tables, both players are not only part of the Baby Boomer generation, but also have a World Series of Poker bracelet between them. Reynolds won his this summer in a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event and Heeb’s dates back to a 2002 win in a $3,000 event of the same game.

The list of players they beat to win their gold bracelets are impressive, with Reynolds edging out WPT Champions Club member Vlad Darie and Heeb outlasting Poker Hall of Fame member Johnny Chan.

Reynolds is on a heater in 2017, winning a bracelet at his first-ever major final table and brings 4.395 million and the chip lead into the WPT Maryland final table. In fact, WPT Maryland is the first-ever World Poker Tour event entered by Reynolds, who says he learned plenty from his bracelet run that helped him out this week.

“I build up pretty well, then I got knocked down a couple of times,” Reynolds said. “I made a comeback and was pretty steady after that. I think I was patient enough. That’s one of the keys for me – not to get too excited when I have a bad hand or two.”

Both players live fairly close to Live! Casino, with Reynolds hailing from North Carolina and Heeb in Virginia.

Heeb is an economist by trade with a PhD from the University of Chicago, and he uses poker in his day-to-day work. Sought out for court cases requiring expert testimony, Heeb has submitted the claim on multiple occasions that poker is a game of skill. His bracelet win and performance this week more than justify his research. Heeb took the chip lead late on Day 3 and starts the final table second in chips with 3.97 million.

For Reynolds, he has the chance to pick up two major wins in the span of half a year, and Heeb is making the most of his first World Poker Tour cash since Season XIII.

Poker is a game for all ages, and as Mike Sexton proved last year, players over the age of 50 are capable of hanging with the younger generation. The 56-year-old Heeb and 62-year-old Reynolds are both looking to out-duel the other while simultaneously working together to knock off a final table where all four of their opponents are age 30 or under.

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