Although he came to the final table as the second shortest stack, David Ormsby would stick around long enough to become a thorn in the start of day chip leader Robert Forbes’ side, eventually defeating Forbes to take the championship of the World Poker Tour’s stop at the Fallsview Poker Classic in Canada on Thursday evening.
It definitely looked bleak for Ormsby at the start. With only 1.55 million in chips, he led only Thomas Archer (880,000 in chips) on the leaderboard when play began on Thursday afternoon. Ormsby was looking up at some difficult players that included Derek Verrian (1.565 million), Soren Turkewitsch (1.83 million), Mike Bui (2.86 million) and the previously mentioned Forbes, who was dominating the final table with his 4.015 million chip count.
Knowing he needed to make a move quick, Archer would push his chip stack to the center on the third hand of play with only an A-5, looking to steal the blinds and antes. As if he needed it, Forbes would wake up with a pocket pair of Queens on the button and, after he called Archer’s bet, saw the board give Archer a five but nothing else. By knocking out Archer in sixth place, Forbes solidified his lead by jumping over the six million chip mark and seemed to be on cruise control to the championship.
Forbes continued to punish his tablemates as his mountain of chips only got bigger. He dumped Turkewitsch from the tournament when his A-7 ruled over Turkewitsch’s A-4 (flopping a seven for good measure) to crack the nine million chip mark. Although he would suffer a couple of missteps to come back to the pack a bit, Forbes continued to be a wrecking ball in taking down Bui in fourth place when his pocket Aces stood over Bui’s K-10 off suit, giving Forbes twice as many chips as Verrian and Ormsby had between each other.
While Forbes had what seemed to be an insurmountable lead, Verrian and Ormsby didn’t roll over for him. Ormsby got a double up through Forbes, his A-K making it over Forbes’ A-9, but he would sacrifice some of those chips to Verrian as Verrian drew closer to Forbes. In fact, it was a battle between Verrian and Forbes that would bring the final table to heads up play.
On Hand 131, Verrian pushed out a bet off the button and Forbes three-bet out of the small blind. After Ormsby mucked, Verrian called to see a 6-5-3 flop that drew a 550K bet from Forbes. Verrian immediately moved all in for his remaining two million in chips and, after pondering his position, Forbes made the call. Verrian had hit top pair with his 8-6, but Forbes was in good shape with his A-4 (open-ended draw to the straight, Ace over card). A deuce came on the turn to give Forbes his straight and now Verrian could only be saved by a four to split the pot. Instead, a ten came on the river to send Verrian out in third place.
As they entered heads up play, Forbes was dominating the game:
Forbes – 9.265 million
Ormsby – 3.435 million
Forbes didn’t waste any time in trying to go for the kill, quickly taking his stack north of 10 million chips in four hands of play. Two more hands – both of which went to Ormsby and saw Forbes firing indiscriminately in trying to force Ormsby off his hands – saw Ormsby close the gap to 2:1, where it would stay for about 15 hands. On Hand 155, however, Ormsby was able to eke into the lead and he would never look back.
On the final hand of the tournament, Ormsby limped in and Forbes pushed all in for almost three million in chips. Ormsby made the call and, after seeing Forbes’ pocket threes, was racing with his K-J. The race was a quick one, the flop coming down A-K-4 to give Ormsby a better pair and, after a seven on the turn and a six on the river failed to help Forbes, Ormsby had completed his unlikely comeback to become the champion of the WPT Fallsview.
1. David Ormsby – $383,407
2. Robert Forbes – $268,773
3. Derek Verrian – $172,823
4. Mike Bui – $127,805
5. Soren Turkewitsch – $95,949
6. Thomas Archer – $76,874
(All money amounts in Canadian dollars)