The stakes were high at Sunday’s seventh Texas hold ’em intramurals tournament.

In a field of 151, only the 10 who made the final table were awarded the new vintage intramurals T-shirt.

The champion: Adam Hoebelheinrich, junior in journalism and mass communication. Finishing in second was Josh Ng, freshman in pre-business, and bringing home the bronze was Darrin Ling, junior in psychology.

Rounding out the final table was Mitch Clark, sophomore in finance; Jacob Burgduff, senior in electrical engineering; Eric Petrowiak, sophomore in computer engineering; Josh Pfantz, freshman in agronomy; Kevin Korth, sophomore in civil engineering; Thinh Luong, sophomore in electrical engineering; and Chris Engh, senior in accounting.

“The competition was good,” said Ling, a self-described fifth-year player. “Judging by past intramural events, I wasn’t sure how serious it would be, but I was surprised. Usually, there seems to be a pretty big mix of people who know what they’re doing and people who just want to go and try to win a shirt. Everyone at the tables I played at knew how to play, though.”

Top finishers in the tournament all realized the competitiveness was high, and agreed in ranking this tournament finish at the top of their respective lists.

“I’ve been playing hold ’em for five years, and I’d rank this tourney as one of the best on my list of top finishes,” Ng said.

Hoebelheinrich had an even higher opinion.

“This is absolutely number one. You can’t top this,” Hoebelheinrich said. “This is the largest group I’ve ever sat down with. It’s fun to sit down and beat five of your friends, but when you beat a whole university, it is very gratifying.”

Although numbers were down from prior years, intramural program coordinator Linda Marticke said a spring semester tournament is in the works.

“Several of the players requested that we have another tournament in the spring semester,” Marticke said. “The comments expressed that it was a lot of fun and a success.”

Ng said he was pleased with the tournament.

“I’d rate the quality of the event 10 out of 10 because everything went so smoothly,” he said.