In rather bizarre news from the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe festivities in London, the final pairing of the £10,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up tournament has been suspended after play wrapped up early this morning at 3:00am ET. In the best-of-three finale, Jim “Mr_BigQueso” Collopy and Full Tilt Poker pro Gus Hansen are even at one match apiece. When the rubber match will occur is not yet known.
Normally, Hansen and Collopy would have simply come back to the Casino at the Empire to determine a bracelet winner today. However, both are playing in Day 1B of the WSOP Europe Main Event. In addition, coverage found on WSOP.com revealed that a British law may have stunted the tournament from concluding overnight: “We understand that there’s actually some sort of legal issue with them starting a heads-up match after 3:00am; but either way, we commend the WSOPE for making this excellent decision and sparing us the shame of still being here around lunchtime tomorrow.”
In the defining hand of Hansen’s and Collopy’s first match, the latter called a 3bet pre-flop to see the first three cards come 9-J-A with two spades. Hansen bet out 157,000 and Collopy called to bring the king of diamonds on the turn. Hansen fired out a second shell, this time 384,000, and Collopy got out of the way to shrink his stack to 1.16 million, down from the starting total of nearly two million.
Then, a short-stacked Collopy pushed all-in with Q-8 of clubs before the flop and Hansen called with a wired pair of nines. The flop of 10-J-8 gave Hansen an open-ended straight draw and Collopy some hope with a pair and a gutshot, but running sevens didn’t change matters and Hansen drew first blood.
In the second match, Collopy once again fell behind early and at one point shoved all-in three times in the span of four hands. He ultimately called all-in with K-9 pre-flop and Hansen tabled A-7. Hansen flopped a seven to preserve his lead in the hand and was two cards away from claiming his first WSOP bracelet. Hansen picked up a flush draw when the turn put two clubs onboard, but a red nine on the river gave Collopy the critical double up.
Hansen battled back to even in the lengthy heads-up match and ultimately got his chips in with pocket queens ahead of Collopy’s pocket nines. Once again, however, nines were lucky for Collopy, who flopped a set to take down match #2.
In today’s action from the WSOP Europe Main Event, Collopy scooped a massive pot on Day 1B when his pocket rockets survived a flush draw. “Mr_BigQueso” stood in the top 10 in chips at the time of writing with a stack of 55,000. Hansen was still alive at 28,000, leaving many to wonder when we might see play resume in the Heads-Up bracelet event. The Main Event is scheduled to run for six days.
WSOP officials told Poker News Daily it’s unlikely that we’ll see the conclusion of the match today. Instead, Hansen and Collopy will both need to bust from the Main Event before any discussion of when to resume the Heads-Up bracelet match can begin.
Here’s how the field cashed out in the £10,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up event at WSOP Europe:
3. Ram Vaswani – £96,212
4. Andrew Feldman – £96,212
5. Daniel Negreanu – £47,045
6. Kevin Eyster – £47,045
7. Huck Seed – £47,045
8. Neil Channing – £47,045
9. Howard Lederer – £22,847
10. Martin Kabrhel – £22,847
11. McLean Karr – £22,847
12. Saar Wilf – £22,847
13. Andrew “good2cu” Robl – £22,847
14. Phil Ivey – £22,847
15. Marius Torbergsen – £22,847
16. Sondre Svanevik – £22,847
We’ll keep you posted on the latest news and notes from the 2010 WSOP Europe festivities in London right here on Poker News Daily.
