Jeff Haney on a New York MBA who gambled with a low hand and walked away with a full house and more than a million dollars

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

Joe Tehan earned his master's of business administration from Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., and promptly announced that he was moving to Las Vegas to pursue a career as a professional poker player.

"When I heard that, I was about ready to pull the rest of my hair out," Basil Tehan, Joe's not quite bald father, said last week at Mandalay Bay.

It was 2 1/2 years ago that Joe Tehan made the decision to hop into his old Ford Taurus and drive across the country with $7,000, bound for the poker tables of the Strip . For his dad, it still hasn't sunk in.

"We're from upstate New York," Basil Tehan said. "We're farm people. You know, we plant corn. We milk cows. If we see a penny on the ground, we pick it up. This out here - this is a different world."

Joe Tehan's willingness to gamble paid off in a big way Thursday night, when he became the latest champion on the World Poker Tour, collecting the top prize of $1.03 million for winning the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship.

Tehan outlasted a field of 349 entrants in the $10,000 buy-in, no-limit Texas hold 'em event. It was the second tournament of World Poker's fifth season and the tour's Mandalay Bay debut.

With the victory, Tehan also punched his ticket for next April's World Poker Tour Championship at the Bellagio, an entry worth $25,500.

"I've played a lot of poker, and I feel I can compete with anyone," Tehan, 25, said. "It makes me feel good that I can compete with the best players in the world."

Tehan emerged as the champ after a spirited heads-up session with fellow Las Vegan Burt Boutin and a drawn-out three-player tangle that included Brad Booth, a poker pro from Canada's Yukon Territory.

When Boutin pushed all-in on the final hand, he did so with enough chips to force Tehan into thinking mode - "into the tank," in poker parlance - for several long moments.

Tehan called with an eight and a nine, nearly a 2-1 preflop underdog against Boutin's ace-10.

When the flop revealed two nines along with a 10, Boutin said later, he felt as though someone had punched him in the solar plexus - or words to that effect. The turn brought an ace, giving Boutin some hope, but the river was an eight to give Tehan a full house on a hand that will show well when the tournament airs on the Travel Channel (Cox cable channel 66, date to be determined).

Tehan said he thought Boutin might have been playing a low pair, and that he did not mind taking slightly the worst of it given the chance to put the finishing touches on the five-day tournament.

"I thought it was a good time to end it, so I decided to gamble," Tehan said. "I had a feeling I had two live cards."

Although Tehan and Boutin are regulars in the Bellagio poker room, neither man had a good read on the other while they were competing head-to-head. Boutin prefers playing no-limit hold 'em cash games, while Tehan sticks to mixed-game tables at limits ranging from $40-$80 to $400-$800.

Tehan relied on an aggressive yet mostly by-the-numbers approach throughout the tournament.

"I never have any sort of strategy as far as (playing differently) early as opposed to late in the tournament," he said. "I usually try to play as straightforward as possible. If I think I have the best hand, I try to get some chips in; otherwise I get away from (the hand)."

While the lucrative tournament victory certainly validates his decision to pursue the Las Vegas poker life, Tehan said, just proving he has the ability to be a working poker pro has been satisfying enough.

"This is how I make my living, but I also enjoy playing poker," he said. "I'm definitely going to keep doing it."

Tehan said he plans to devote a chunk of his prize money to various investments - but a portion of it will go to replace his beat-up Taurus, the one he drove here from the farm country of upstate New York.

"I definitely could use a new car," he said.

Results, with hometown and prize money won, from the World Poker Tour's Mandalay Bay Poker Championship (total prize pool of $3.38 million):

1. Joe Tehan, Las Vegas, $1.03 million

2. Burt Boutin, Las Vegas, $604,765

3. Brad Booth, White Horse, Canada, $319,180

4. Alex Outhred, Los Angeles, $184,745

5. Al Stonum, San Mateo, Calif., $134,390

6. Steve Vincent, Las Vegas, $94,075