Coming from the middle of the pack, Jordan Cristos outlasted veteran poker professional Dan Heimiller to take his first major championship at the 2013 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, CA, late last night.
At the start of the day, it didn’t look like it would be these two men squaring off for the title. Ryan Goindoo, who had been hovering around the top of the leaderboard throughout the tournament, held 5.57 million chips to have an edge over poker pro Phil Laak’s 4.73 million stack. Cristos was in the middle with his 4.265 million, while John Gordon (2.935 million) and Alexandru Masek (2.89 million) held the fourth and fifth slots. Way down the ladder and looking to survive was Heimiller, who started the day as the short stack with only 1.07 million in chips.
The action started slowly at the Bike on Wednesday afternoon as the first twenty hands went without significant action. Heimiller, however, used the all-in move judiciously to slowly grind his stack upwards. Within those twenty hands, Heimiller would aggressively take seven of them to be able to build his stack over the two million mark.
After two hours of action, all six men were still on the felt with Goindoo at the helm, but there was some movement behind him. Cristos had moved up to take over the second place slot while Gordon, Heimiller, Masek and Laak all were within 750,000 chips of each other. Those four men would have their work cut out for them as even Gordon’s third place stack of 2.7 million was over two million chips behind Cristos.
The first significant action wouldn’t be an elimination but a devastating bad beat. After Laak originally raised the pot, Goindoo made the call and Gordon pushed the action to 750K. After pondering for a bit, Laak moved all in and, after Goindoo released his hand, Gordon immediately called and tabled a leading pair of Kings over Laak’s pocket tens. The board was cruel for Gordon, however, coming down 9-6-5-7-8 to give Laak the better straight with a ten. After the chips were counted, Laak was determined to be all in; that wasn’t the case after the hand as he scooped up 4.72 million in chips and Gordon was left with scraps.
Gordon didn’t just give up, though. He would get two double ups through Heimiller and Cristos to get back over the million chip mark, but the travails to get back to a healthy stack were too difficult to overcome. On Gordon’s final hand, he would get it in good with an A-10 against Goindoo’s Q-7, only to see a Queen on the flop. Once no Ace came to save him, Gordon was out of the tournament in sixth place after over 60 hands of play.
Following Gordon’s elimination, the pace of play picked up rapidly. Roughly fifteen hands after Gordon’s departure, Cristos would end the night for Laak when Laak made an ill-timed move. After a raise by Cristos, Laak put 3.7 million chips on the line and Cristos called as soon as Laak said “all in,” tabling pocket Queens to go against Laak’s A-8 off suit. Although Laak would flop a gut shot straight draw, a Queen on the turn and a blank on the river sent Laak to the exits of the Bike in fifth place.
Only five hands later, Masek would take the walk away from the final table. Moving in his last two million in chips, Goindoo made the call and was in the lead with his A-2 over Masek’s J-9. That changed on the flop when Masek hit a Jack, but an Ace on the turn switched the lead back to Goindoo. When a five fell on the river, Masek was out and Goindoo was approaching the ten million chip mark.
That would be the last big move Goindoo would make, however. He doubled up Heimiller two hands later and, on the next hand, the duo would clash again. Goindoo was the one at risk on this deal and he led pre-flop with his pocket fives over Heimiller’s Big Slick. The flop was devastating for Goindoo, A-K-3, and once a ten and a four completed the board, Goindoo was gone in third place.
Taking all of Goindoo’s chips pushed Heimiller into the lead over Cristos at the start of heads up play, but the battle was only beginning. Heimiller would stretch out to almost a 2:1 lead in the first ten hands of heads up action, but Cristos would narrow that gap back to only about three million chips over the next ten. On Hand 110, the chip lead – and the tournament – would flip in a pivotal hand.
Cristos raised from the button and Heimiller called to see an A-7-3 flop. Heimiller would check call a bet at that point to see an eight fall on the turn. After checking again, this time Heimiller would raise Cristos’ 1.6 million chip bet to 3.6 million, but Cristos wasn’t playing. He moved all in and, after Heimiller folded, showed only one card – the J♥ – to torment Heimiller, take the pot and the lead in the match.
Heimiller could never recover from that hand. Although they would play another ten pots, on the final hand Heimiller moved all in and Cristos called. The hand was about as ugly as it could get for Heimiller; his K♥ 4♥ was crushed by the A♥ 9♥ of Cristos and, after a nine on the flop and no King coming to the rescue on the turn or river, the veteran poker pro was defeated by Cristos.
1. Jordan Cristos, $613,355
2. Dan Heimiller, $356,115
3. Ryan Goindoo, $233,360
4. Alexandru Masek, $156,790
5. Phil Laak, $109,385
6. John Gordon, $85,080
With the victory, Cristos is within striking distance of $1 million in career earnings and joins a host of the most famous names in the game on the WPT Champions’ Cup. Heimiller, as a consolation prize, now sits less than $100,000 shy of cracking the $4 million mark in career earnings, a level of excellence that only 138 players have reached in the history of tournament poker.
