Vancouver’s Daniel Idema won the 2013 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Event #39: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better early Monday morning after almost 100 hands of heads-up play and 301 hands at the final table overall. Beating out names such as Layne Flack, Kristy Gazes, and Poker Hall of Famer Linda Johnston en route to the final table and strong players like Matt Vengrin, Mike Leah, and Artie Cobb once he got there, Idema won $184,590.
Daniel Idema is one of those really good poker players that not many people know about. This was already his fourth cash of the 2013 WSOP and the second WSOP bracelet of his career. He was fitted for the gold hardware the first time in 2011 when he won the $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship, good for $378,642. That came just a year after finishing as the runner-up in the exact same event. He has two additional final tables at the World Series of Poker as well as a number of trips into the top 20. He has now won $1.7 million in his live tournament career, $1 million of which is from the WSOP.
When the eight-handed final table arrived, Idema was fifth in chips, though in a group with two other players in the mid-to-upper 300,000 range. An hour in, he scooped Fei Chu to get his stack to over a half million chips and hour later, though he had dropped about 40,000 chips, he found himself second in chips. It was quite the battle at that point, with four of the six remaining players all at 434,000 or higher and the two short stacks at 324,000 and 347,000. By the dinner break, he was the chip leader with 640,000.
Once the field was trimmed in half, Idema had added a few chips, but Raul Paez had added a lot, taking the chip lead with 1.34 million. Paez, though, went into a slide after he was bluffed by Joseph Hertzog (Hertzog had J-9-3-T showing and ended up with just a pair of Jacks, while Paez had A-K-Q-K face-up and ended up folding on seventh street) and eventually bowed out in third place.
Going into heads-up play, Hertzog had a slight lead on Idema, 1.380 million to 1.135 million. The two went back and forth in the beginning, but Hertzog was soon able to pull ahead, slashing Idema’s chip stack all the way down to 380,000 with the blinds and antes at 50,000/100,000/10,000.
Idema wasn’t done, though (obviously). He doubled-up after making a six-high straight and six-low on the river to scoop a pot and then got Hertzog to fold on seventh to climb to over 1.1 million chips.
Oh, by the way, this whole time, the two competitors were doing shots together. Shots. Of alcohol. What a sport.
After the third shot of Jäger, Idema took the lead for good. On the final hand, Hertzog was down to his last 250,000 and got it all-in on fourth street. When the cards were all out, Idema had K-K-2-9-5-3-J for a pair of Kings while Hertzog had 2-5-8-K-Q-x-4 for absolutely jack squat, giving Idema the title and a healthy six-figure payday.
2013 World Series of Poker Event #39: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better – Final Table Results
1. Daniel Idema – $184,590
2. Joseph Hertzog – $114,109
3. Raul Paez – $71,736
4. Matt Vengrin – $51,488
5. Mike Leah – $37,552
6. Tony Gill – $27,834
7. Fei Chu – $20,964
8. Artie Cobb – $16,037
