The final 31 players came back to the Amazon Room at the 2012 World Series of Poker’s Event #6, the $5000 No Limit Hold’em “Mixed Max” tournament, facing the task of working down to the Final Four in the last leg of the format. After playing nine-handed on Day One and six-handed on Day Two, the remaining players (all in the money) would play Saturday in a heads up format, which will determine the champion of the event today.
With only 31 players remaining, chip leader Warwick Mirzikinian got a bye for the first round of play and the remaining players squared off according to their positions (second against 31st, third against 30th, etc.). This meant that the short stacked players, such as Tom McCormick (entering his match against Fabrizio Baldassari down 461K to 19K) and Victor Ramdin (down 409-47 against Aaron Jones) were quick casualties of the first round of action. In fact, only Brock Parker, Toby Lewis, Anthony Gargano, Matthew DeLuca and Ryan O’Donnell were able to defeat their higher seeded opponents to make it to the Round of 16.
Jones would be the first casualty of the Round of 16, falling at the hands of Hugo Lemaire in stunning fashion. After a raise from Lemaire and a reraise from Jones, Lemaire pushed his remaining 110K in chips to the center and got a call. Lemaire’s A-2 was way behind Jones’ A-Q, but a deuce on the flop flipped the fortunes. Once no Queen appeared on the turn or river, Lemaire fortunately passed through Jones onto the Elite Eight.
O’Donnell and Parker would face similar fates – falling to bigger stacked opponents in Mirzikinian and former “November Niner” Joseph Cheong – but in not nearly as dramatic a manner. As the Sweet Sixteen played out, the Elite Eight lined up as such:
#1 Warwick Mirzikinian (805K) vs. #9 Marvin Rettenmaier (742.5K)
#5 Aubin Cazals (743K) vs. #13 Adam Geyer (732K)
#2 Fabrizio Baldassari (827K) vs. #7 Joseph Cheong (738K)
#11 Randy Haddox (752K) vs. #14 Hugo Lemaire (793K)
Slightly more than an hour into the Elite Eight matchups, the first member of the Final Four would be determined. Cazals had been battering Geyer during their match with constant pressure, with Geyer finally submitting to it. Calling an all-in with only J-5, Geyer saw he was behind Cazals’ A-3 but moved to the lead with a flopped Jack. A blank turn had Geyer one card from a critical double, but the Ace came instead to seal the match for Cazals and move him one step closer to the WSOP bracelet.
Lemaire was able to get the best of Haddox in the battle between the two lowest seeds left in the tournament while Cheong topped Baldassari in a seed-wise upset to punch his ticket to the Final Four. The final spot, to be determined between Mirzikinian and Rettenmaier, turned out to be the Match of the Night.
Playing for almost six hours, the two slugged it out in the marathon battle. Rettenmaier, fresh off his win at the World Poker Tour Championship just over a week ago, would be knocked down in the early going but would rebound to take a slight lead at the four hour mark. Mirzikinian, however, would bring the fight back to the German, retaking a lead that he would never relinquish. On their final hand, Rettenmaier committed his stack with A-J against Mirzikinian’s pocket threes and the race was on. It looked to be over on the flop, as Rettenmaier hit his Ace on the A-K-10 arrangement. A nine on the turn kept Rettenmaier in the lead, but the three on the river gave a set to Mirzikinian to cruelly end Rettenmaier’s run at a WSOP bracelet and set up the Final Four:
Warwick Mirzikinian (1,547,500) vs. Aubin Cazals (1,475,000)
Joseph Cheong (1,567,000) vs. Hugo Lemaire (1,545,000)
Cheong is the most notable name here, having made the 2010 WSOP Championship Event final table, and he will have the dominant chip stack should he work his way through Lemaire. The Mirzikinian/Cazals match should be a dandy as both players are ultra-aggressive heads up. The eventual champion of today’s final day will take home the WSOP bracelet and the $480,564 first place bounty.
