Somewhat obscured by the stunning announcement last night of Amaya Gaming buying PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker was the continuation of festivities at the 2014 World Series of Poker. In Event #24, the players were whittled down to the final two contenders and, in Event #25, the United Kingdom’s John Kabbaj captured his second WSOP bracelet in defeating a talented field in Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi/Low Split-8 or Better.
Event #24 – $5000 Six Handed No Limit Hold’em – Day Three
This tournament fell victim to the WSOP curfew rule without being able to determine a champion on Thursday. Instead, the final two contenders – Kevin Eyster and Pierre Neuville – will return on Friday afternoon to decide who wants the bracelet.
With only 17 players left at the start of Thursday’s Day Three, it was thought it would be fairly easy to get to a champion. The deep stacks – buoyed by the starting stack of 15K in chips – left the players at the felt with plenty of potential for play and extended the process. When things began on Thursday afternoon, Matt Jarvis was the only player over the million chip mark (1.373 million, to be exact) as players such as Bryn Kenney, Griffin Benger, Byron Kaverman, Pratyush Buddiga and former World Champion Greg Merson looked to take him down.
2014 WSOP bracelet winner Kory Kilpatrick was the first departure of the day (only 17 minutes into the action) and the three tables quickly whittled themselves down to the final 10 players. Benger, Merson, Buddiga, Kaverman and Amanda Musumeci were among those who would depart after about two hours of play.
Still playing on two tables, Kenney had now assumed a slim lead over Fabrice Touil and Andrew Lichtenberger, but that would change immediately following Kaverman’s elimination in 10th place. Kenney passed a half million chips to David Borrat to push Borrat up the leaderboard, but Kenney rebounded nicely to keep himself in the mix. Jarvis would hit the rail in ninth place when his pocket fours couldn’t withstand the assault of Kenney’s A-K, which put Kenney back into the lead.
After Eyster eliminated Touil in eighth place, the final seven men came together to determine the official WSOP final table. It would take almost two hours for that unfortunate soul to be determined but, once Eyster bumped off Mustapha Kanit in seventh, the table was set with Eyster in the lead over Kenney.
This is when the tournament reached a quagmire. The players would go through a level, a dinner break and 56 hands of play before the first elimination of the final table would occur. Borrat would push his dwindling stack to the center with a K-10 off suit and, sitting in the small blind, Jeremy Kottler would wake up with pocket Queens and made the call. A ten would come on the flop to breathe some life into Borrat’s sails but neither a King nor another ten would hit the turn or river, sending him out in sixth place.
Kottler couldn’t keep that surge of momentum going, however, as he would be the next to depart. In a situation oddly like his elimination of Borrat, Kottler would get his pocket Queens in good against Lichtenberger’s A-10 but, this time, an Ace came on the turn to change the outcome. Down to four men with the elimination of Kottler, they were only separated by about a million chips as the battle raged into the night.
Almost 30 hands passed between Kottler’s elimination and the next player to depart. Kenney would ship a major portion of his stack to Eyster after Eyster made a wheel with his A-3 on a 2-A-10-5-4 board and was never able to recover. Kenney would get his final chips in against Neuville and, although behind with his A-5 to Neuville’s A-9, caught a five on the flop to take the lead. The “poker gods” gives and takes away, however, as a nine spiked the turn to push Neuville back in front. When he missed his only two outs on the river, Kenney was done in fourth place.
Neuville, Eyster and Lichtenberger would continue the fight as Friday morning came. With the WSOP curfew looming, Lichtenberger would be pushed to a decision for his tournament life by Eyster on a 4-Q-Q-3-K board. After pondering his choices for several minutes, Lichtenberger made the call and was dismayed to see Eyster show pocket tens had his A-8 completely beaten.
With Lichtenberger’s departure in third, Neuville was still ahead of Eyster by 1.3 million chips as heads up play began. Over an hour of action, though, Eyster was able to eat into Neuville’s stack and take over the lead by a wide margin. As the bell sounded for the WSOP curfew, the twosome was given the option of playing one more level or calling it a night. Eyster was a willing participant but Neuville wasn’t up to it, setting up this afternoon’s clash for the WSOP bracelet.
Kevin Eyster, 5.655 million
Pierre Neuville, 2.465 million
At stake for the final two men is the WSOP bracelet (something that neither has) and a $622,998 payday. The man who leaves in second will not have the gold, but they will have $385,041 as a nice consolation prize.
Event #25 – $2500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi/Low Split-8 or Better – Day Three
18 very talented mixed game players were still around on Thursday for the penultimate day of Event #25 with a chance to rewrite history. Erik Seidel entered the day as the chip leader while looking for his ninth bracelet but, at his table alone, he faced the likes of Thomas Keller, Owais Ahmed, Robert Mizrachi and Joe Tehan. Throw in other contenders such as Chris Reslock, Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, John Kabbaj, Mike Leah, Matt Glantz and four-time WSOP bracelet winner Tom Schneider in the mix and it was still a tournament that was up for grabs.
Within 10 minutes of the start of play, Glantz and Michael Roeseler would be defeated to bring the tournament to its final two tables and, before there could be a redraw, Konstantin Puchkov would be eliminated by Leah in 16th place. Ahmed would drop in 15th place at the hands of Fu Wong in Stud Hi/Low when his Jacks and tens two pair was eclipsed by Wong’s Aces and deuces, but the story of the early action was the play of Schneider.
Schneider, the 2007 WSOP Player of the Year, was down to only 25K in chips as the afternoon wore on. He went on a rush that saw him build that meager holding back into 375K in chips, outlasting a host of players (including Shulman, Mizrachi, Reslock, Andrey Zhigalov and Wong in 14th through 10th places, respectively) in making his way to the unofficial nine-handed final table with Christopher McHugh holding the lead.
The chips continued to fly as the players continued to drop. Tehan would scoop a pot in Stud against Seidel and Tyson Marks, eliminating Marks in ninth place, to make the final table official. In winning that hand, Tehan would take over the chip lead but it was tenuous at best. With the blinds and antes eating into everyone’s stacks, it wouldn’t take long for a champion to be determined amongst those men.
Schneider’s run at a fifth WSOP bracelet ended in eighth place at the hands of Seidel and, on the very next hand of Omaha Hi/Low, Leah would be ejected by Kabbaj in seventh. After a switch to Stud Hi/Low, Seidel’s efforts for a ninth WSOP bracelet came to a close after Keller’s two pair (tens and nines) bested Seidel’s two pair (sevens and fives) without either making a low hand. Once the game switched back to Omaha, Tehan’s run would end in fifth place, also at the hands of Keller, while Kabbaj eliminated Terrence Hastoo in fourth just before the dinner break.
After taking their allotted time to eat, Kabbaj (1.64 million), Keller (1.21 million) and Christopher McHugh (665,000) came back and determined the champion in a brief (for a split game, anyway) 90 minutes. Kabbaj fired with both barrels at his opponents, taking McHugh down in third place in Omaha Hi/Low and going to heads up against Keller with more than a 2:1 lead. Kabbaj lengthened that lead as the game shifted to Stud Hi/Low and then would end the tournament.
On the final hand, Kabbaj completed the bet and called a raise out of Keller with a nine showing (Keller’s up card was a trey). On Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Streets, the players would bet until Keller’s final chips were in the center with Keller showing a motley assortment (3-J-9-5) and Kabbaj exposing a pair (9-7-Q-7). The last down cards were dealt out and, although Kabbaj couldn’t improve his hand in showing an A-J-6, Keller was unable to find any salvation in his 2-3-8 (pair of treys) to give Kabbaj the title and his second WSOP bracelet.
1. John Kabbaj (United Kingdom), $267,327
2. Thomas Keller (United States), $165,177
3. Christopher McHugh (United States), $105,000
4. Terrence Hastoo (United States), $75,713
5. Joe Tehan (United States), $55,451
6. Erik Seidel (United States), $41,230
7. Mike Leah (Canada), $31,115
8. Tom Schneider (United States), $23,833
