In the only bracelet-deciding event yesterday, Levi Berger held the lead at the start of the day in Event #11, the $2500 Six Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament. While he would lose that lead at the start of the final table, he would devastate the field en route to taking down the championship.
Fourteen players came back for action on Thursday with Berger being chased by former World Poker Tour World Champion Tuan Le and Scott Clements. At the time, it wasn’t much of a chase as Berger’s 1.42 million stack dwarfed those of Le (873,000) and Clements (842,000). Joining them in the hunt for the WSOP bracelet were Eddy Sabat, Jacob Bazeley and Tammie Tibbles, the first woman to actually lead an event at this year’s WSOP (she was the Day One leader).
Early action would see Ben Palmer double up through Le while Mickey Peterson did the same through Tibbles. Berger himself would be caught in the “double up” phase of the tournament, issuing one to Gary Pearce after his K-J was beaten by Pearce’s K-Q. After Le doubled up Marcio Cid to drop further down the leaderboard, the first elimination would occur.
Tibbles had been unable to gain any traction in the final fourteen on Thursday and, in the cutoff, she decided to put her final chips into the center. Petersen, on the button, moved all in over the top and, when the cards were on their backs, his Big Slick dominated Tibbles’ A-4. The flop brought three hearts to go along with Tibbles’ A♥, but there would be no more as Petersen took the hand, knocking out Tibbles in 14th place.
The elimination of Tibbles seemed to loosen up the players as a spree of knockouts occurred. Clements would eliminate Peter Turmezey in 13th, Berger dismissed Pearce in 12th and Palmer would end the tournament of Luke Vrabel in 11th place. Berger would experience some adversity during this phase, doubling up the dangerous Sabat when Sabat’s A-K would river a King after Berger had flopped a Queen to go with his A-Q.
With four more eliminations to go before the “official” final table was set, the players were still on two tables and the eliminations kept coming. Sabat would end the day for Le in tenth place, rivering a seven for a set against Le’s pocket Aces, while Palmer sent home Petersen in ninth. After Clements took care of the pesky Cid in eighth place, the players were one away from the official final table (but now all on one table).
That would last all of one hand of play. After seeing Clifford Goldkind make a raise in front of him, Clements put on the pressure with a three bet. This set off a potting war, with Goldkind’s chips finally reaching the center of the felt. His A♥ 10♥ was in trouble against Clements’ A-J off suit, but the 5♣ 5♥ 4♥ flop brought some excitement. A 6♠ wasn’t great for Goldkind, but it did provide a few more outs to a possible chop in the hand along with his outright win chances. Alas, a 2♦ came on the river, ending his day in seventh place.
As the final six men came to the table to decide the champion, Clements had surged out to 2.675 million chips, good for the lead over Berger (1.331 million). On only the second hand of the final table, however, Berger would see his stack plummet when he originally hit his Big Chick against Sabat’s Big Slick, but Sabat would find a King on the river to save him and put Sabat into second. At that point, Berger was the short stack with 480K in chips.
Undaunted, Berger began a recovery that is rarely seen in tournament poker. He slowly rebuilt his stack and, after eliminating David Gonia in sixth place, was hovering under the million chip mark. He would get some chips back from Sabat when his A-10 scored an Ace against Sabat’s pocket Kings, then Berger would dump Bazeley in fifth to get back in the upper half of the table. Once Berger completed the job against Sabat (eliminating him in fourth place), Berger had returned to the top of the charts in dramatic fashion.
The Berger onslaught would only continue over the remainder of the tournament. He would defeat Ben Palmer over two hands to knock him off in third and set up the heads up battle with Clements. With both players nearly even in chips (Clements had done some damage to Palmer also), it looked as though they would be settling in for a long evening of battle.
Those looking for a strategic fight instead saw a slugfest that ended in only sixteen hands. The duo traded the lead a couple of times before Berger took control in pulling out to a nearly two million chip lead. On the final hand, Berger and Clements saw an 8-7-2 flop that brought a check-raise from Clements to 245K. Berger didn’t back down, pushing it up to 580K and, after Clements pushed all in, Berger made the call immediately. His pocket Kings held the edge over Clements’ 10-9 (open ended straight draw) and, even though he had eight outs twice to catch Berger, Clements would see his tournament end with a four on the turn and a five on the river.
1. Levi Berger (Los Angeles, CA), $473,019
2. Scott Clements (Las Vegas, NV), $292,339
3. Ben Palmer (Las Vegas, NV), $185,426
4. Eddy Sabat (Lancaster, CA), $121,711
5. Jacob Bazeley (Ludlow, KY), $82,297
6. David Gonia (White Bear Lake, MN), $57,282
