Amid the throngs of players that flooded the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino on Saturday for the 2014 World Series of Poker, two tournaments quietly went about their duties of crowning champions. In a $1000 No Limit Hold’em event, Kyle Cartwright rode his start-of-day chip lead to take the crown while former World Poker Tour World Champion Tuan Le defeated a stacked final day field to earn his first WSOP bracelet.
Event #4 – $1000 No Limit Hold’em – Final Day
Of the 2224 players that came to the felt on Thursday for the start of this tournament, only 12 remained when action began on Saturday. Kyle Cartwright was at the head of the pack with his 973,000 in chips, but the field was bunched closely behind him and included 2008 WSOP Championship Event “November Niner” Ylon Schwarz. As was typical of the tournament overall, the players wasted little time getting to the business of determining the champion.
After Robert Kuhn outraced Blake Barousse (Big Slick versus pocket Queens) to eliminated Barousse and Cartwright dumped Geoffrey Mooney in eleventh place, the final ten men came together at the unofficial final table only thirty minutes into the Final Day action. Ten men became nine as Cartwright continued to batter the opposition, eliminating Steve Chanthabouasy in tenth place to set the official final table.
Cartwright, sitting on almost two million in chips (1.914 million, to be exact), was almost a million chips ahead of Kuhn as the final nine went to battle. Schwartz would push his way up the leaderboard when he was able to catch Michael Sortino’s pocket nines with an A-K to crack the million threshold and take over second place on only the ninth hand of the final table. After Jeremy Dresch knocked off Ken Weinstein in eighth place, only seven remained from the original 12 men after two hours of play.
Schwartz would keep the pressure on Cartwright, but the start-of-day chip leader always seemed to keep one step of Schwartz. After Schwartz carved out a big chunk of Kuhn’s chips, Cartwright would eliminate him in seventh and then move on to bump off Dresch in sixth. Those two knockouts – along with Cartwright’s aggression against the rest of the table – pushed him almost to the four million chip mark, by far dominating the other four players.
Looking up with his second place stack, Schwartz attempted to keep pace with Cartwright. His elimination of Matthew O’Donnell in fifth and Daniel Dizenzo in fourth would bump his stack over two million chips as he watched Cartwright come back to the pack a bit in doubling up Jason Paster. The stage was set for a clash between the two major combatants of the Event #4 war and, once it came, someone didn’t walk away from it.
After a raise from Paster, Cartwright three-bet the action to 260K out of the small blind. Almost immediately, Schwartz pushed all-in from the big blind and, after Paster got out of the way, Cartwright pondered the situation. He made the call eventually, turning up pocket nines that were in the lead against Schwartz’ pocket fours. An 8-2-2-J-A board was uneventful as Cartwright picked up the pot, knocked Schwartz out in third place and headed to heads-up play with well over a 2:1 lead.
Paster could never muster any attack against Cartwright as the champion was determined in eight hands. On the final hand, Paster four-bet all in with his pocket fours and Cartwright looked him up with Big Chick (A-Q). There was little drama as the flop fell 5-Q-2 rainbow, pushing Cartwright into the lead. A Jack on the turn and another Queen on the river only bettered Cartwright’s hand, sending Paster’s chips to his stack and crowning him the champion.
1. Kyle Cartwright (United States), $360,278
2. Jason Paster (United States), $223,418
3. Ylon Schwartz (United States), $157,855
4. Daniel Dizenzo (United States), $113,499
5. Matthew O’Donnell (United States), $82,688
6. Jeremy Dresch (United States), $61,041
7. Robert Kuhn (United States), $45,635
8. Ken Weinstein (United States), $34,552
9. Michael Sortino (United States), $26,489
Event #5 – $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball – Final Day
The final 12 men remaining in Event #5 were all guaranteed a payday in the first $10,000 event of this summer’s WSOP, but none of them were happy with just that. Phil Galfond led a stacked two tables that featured the event’s defending champion, Eli Elezra, as well as Jason Mercier, Justin Bonomo, George Danzer, Tuan Le, David Benyamine and Nick Schulman as all tried to position themselves for a run at this WSOP bracelet.
Although he would misstep on the first hand against Jon Turner, Bonomo was the story of the early action. From his 190K chip stack, Bonomo would run that up to 640K in a little more than a half hour of play. He continued to steamroll his opponents, taking chips from Elezra and Mercier as he cracked the 800K mark only one hour into the day’s play.
Bonomo would crack the million chip mark in eliminating Benyamine in twelfth place as the rest of the field try to match Bonomo’s pace. Elezra eliminated Turner in eleventh and Le stepped up to knock off Michael Chow in tenth, but Bonomo would stun the field in a rare (for this discipline of poker anyway) double knockout that brought the field one away from the official final table.
After a raise from Alexandre Luneau, Mercier pushed his remaining chips into the pot. Bonomo called off on Luneau’s bet and drew one card as Luneau joined him and Mercier grabbed two. Now working heads-up, Bonomo check-called a bet from Luneau and drew two while Luneau took one and Mercier stood pat. Bonomo checked once again and Luneau placed his final 20K in chips in the side pot, which Bonomo called. On the final draw, Bonomo now stood pat (along with Mercier, after some deliberation) while Luneau picked one.
With all betting done, Bonomo ended the drama quickly. Throwing down the nut hand of Lowball – 7-5-4-3-2 – all Luneau and Mercier could do was drop their cards in the muck (for the record, Mercier had a nine-low while that final card didn’t help Luneau in teaming his 7-6-4-2 with a King). As Mercier left in ninth and Luneau in eighth, the final seven joined together at the unofficial final table.
Coming to the unofficial final table felt, Bonomo held more than a 2:1 lead against his closest competitor, the pesky Le, while Galfond’s once-mighty chip stack had been whittled down to only 300K. Elezra’s dream of a repeat championship was still alive as Schulman, Danzer and Sergey Rybachenko looked to climb the leaderboard. When the short-stacked Rybachenko was eliminated by Elezra, the final table was set.
Using the Rybachenko knockout, it was Elezra’s turn to go on a run. He closed in on Bonomo’s lead stack as Level 23 ended, but Bonomo would put some distance back between the two in eliminating Galfond in sixth place. Elezra would crack the million threshold in eliminating Danzer in fifth, but Bonomo responded by pushing up to 1.65 million in taking some chips off of Le. With four players left, it appeared that it would come down between Bonomo and Elezra for the WSOP bracelet, then the scene changed rapidly.
In a scant three hands, Le was able to make a run that also put him over the million chip mark. Most of those chips came from Schulman, who would eventually be dispatched by Bonomo in fourth place, and then Bonomo and Le went about savaging Elezra’s stack. Less than 30 minutes after entering three handed play, the defending champion was eliminated by Le to set up heads up play with Bonomo with the chip stacks nearly even.
On the first hand of heads-up play, Le took over the chip lead and never looked back. At one point, Bonomo went into the controversial route of “pump faking” (making it look as if he were to bet to gauge a reaction from his opponent) his bet. Instead of Bonomo releasing the chips, however, Le just calmly put a matching bet out and Bonomo mucked his cards instead of putting chips in the pot.
Although they would battle for well over two hours, it seemed that Le had Bonomo’s number on this day. On the final hand, both sent 100K in chips to the center and drew two cards each. After Bonomo opened up for 50K, Le called and each player took only one card. Bonomo fired again after the second draw and, after Le put in a raise to 200K, Bonomo pushed his remaining chips to the center as each player stood pat on the final draw. Bonomo tabled a nice 9-8-7-5-4 for the fight, but it wasn’t equal to Le’s 9-6-4-3-2, giving the hand and the championship to Tuan Le.
1. Tuan Le (United States), $355,324
2. Justin Bonomo (United States), $219,565
3. Eli Elezra (United States), $144,056
4. Nick Schulman (United States), $99,015
5. George Danzer (Germany), $70,308
6. Phil Galfond (United States), $51,538
