To say this year’s $50,000 HORSE Championship was a sprint and not a marathon is like saying Jeffrey Lisandro is not too bad at Stud games. The five-day event is designed to be a test of stamina and skill, but the final table was probably not the endurance test the tournament staff and players expected. In the end, it took twenty hours and 492 hands to play down from the final eight to a champion. At a final table populated with former bracelet winners like Erik Seidel, Vitaly Lunkin, Ville Wahlbeck, Huck Seed and Chau Giang it was ultimately a player with an impressive resume but no bracelet to his credit that would take the title. Georgia native David Bach defeated John Hanson after a seven hour heads-up match to win his first bracelet, the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy and $1,276,802.
At the start of the eight handed final table, many were wondering if this could be bracelet # 9 for Full Tilt Pro Erik Seidel, who holds the third-highest number of career World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets with eight. This was not the day for the longtime pro though and he made an early exit in eighth player. Another high stakes cash player and Full Tilt Pro, Chau Giang, was the next to hit the rail. Wahlbeck, who was one of the few players capable of catching up with Jeffrey Lisandro in the WSOP Player of the Year race, started the day as the short stack. He fought hard to capture another top three finish, but eventually went out in sixth place. Seed, who final tabled this event last year, improved upon his 7th place finish in 2008, going out in fifth place.
Once play got down to the final four players, it was an unusually quiet final table, especially compared to the three tables that preceded it in past years. Hands were played in virtual silence as Bach, Lunkin, Swedish pro Erik Sagstrom and 2007 HORSE finalist John Hanson shuffled chips around the table. Sagstrom was the chip leader at the start of the day, but it was Lunkin who held the chip lead for much of the afternoon and evening. A bad run of cards late in the day saw his chip stack dissipate though and Lunkin was the next player to fall in fourth place. The finish marks Lunkin’s third top four finish of the summer, all in $10,000 or higher buy-ins, an incredible feat that has netted him almost $3 million in tournament winnings.
After Sagstrom went out in third place, it came down to an epic heads-up battle between Hanson and Bach. Hanson, who is best known for his 3rd place finish in this event in 2007, showed the world that his run two years ago was no fluke and that the semi-professional player really can keep up with the big names in the game. At the start of heads-up play both he and Bach sat with around seven million chips and it became apparent very quickly that this match would not be over any time soon.
The two players exchanged the chip lead at least a dozen times as play continued through the night and into the morning. By 9AM there were only 28 big bets in play, so when Bach went on a small rush of cards it spelled disaster for Hanson’s chip stack. By 10AM, the match was all over when the two players got the last of their chips in the middle on 4th street in a Razz hand. Hanson held 5-8-9-J while Bach had 4-7-6-A. After the remaining three streets were dealt, Bach was able to make a 9-7-4-6-A low, which just bested Hanson’s 9-8-6-5-2 low for the pot and the match.
Bach, whose biggest cash prior to this event was a 6th place finish at the 2007 L.A. Poker Classic for $257,425, finally claimed his first bracelet after ten previous WSOP cashes. Along with the bracelet and the prize money, he also earns the bragging rights that come with winning what many consider to be the pro’s bracelet and one of the most prestigious tournaments of the year.
