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  There are two incredibly annoying letters in the English language. "I" and "F" are perfectly pleasant and agreeable on their own, but when you add the consonant to the vowel, these two letters can make the difference between somebody having a hall of fame career, and a player just becoming a historical footnote in their respective sport. Until just recently this was the legacy of poker player John Phan: a great player who just couldn't win the big one. That changed today.



  John Phan has been touted as a very good poker player, and would have been considered great if he had won a World Series of Poker bracelet. We can now officially call him great because John is now the proud owner of Event #29's championship jewelry. This was no cakewalk for the Vietnamese native; like anything else that is worth having, he had to fight hard for his bracelet.



  The final table started with Phan in the middle of the pack. Like four other players at the table, he was hanging around with a stack worth about 350,000. John's problem wasn't the four guys who were in the same boat as him, it was two guys who were up on him by between 400,000 and 600,000 chips. Matt Vengrin, who was the proud owner of over a million chips, wasted no time in attacking the smallest stack at the table and sending poor Sebastian Segovia of Guatemala packing in 9th place.



  Vengrin struck again when he got into a drawing race with Tony "Bond18" Dunst. Matt made his flush on the turn, Dunst missed his on the river and the online phenom was gone in 8th place.



  While Vengrin was delivering kill shots, Phan was quietly chipping up. He got into the elimination mix himself when he kicked Thuyen Doan from the tournament in 7th place.



  John also took possession of Stewart Newman and David Singer's stacks as he sent them away in sixth and fifth place. Suddenly John had a not so modest stack of chips and was on the attack.



  For a while it looked like it was going to come down to Matt Vengrin and John Phan, but then Johnny Neckar came along with his fancy Ace-Queen and won a kicker war with Matt and his weak little Ace-Nine.



  Phan went into heads-up play with a modest chip lead of about 400,000. That may sound like a lot, but when you have 1.9 million chips and your opponent has 2.3 million, 400,000 doesn't sound all that impressive. In this particular case, the lead was almost meaningless. These two played poker for an exhausting six hours. Eventually it came down to both players all-in with Phan having an Ace-9 and Neckar holding Q-J. The flop and turn were of no help and Phan maintained a lead with his single Ace. Another ace at the river killed Johnny Neckar's hopes of winning a bracelet.



  Suddenly Johnny Phan had his first World Series of Poker bracelet. Congratulations Mr. Phan on your hard fought victory!