The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) kicked off Friday with the first of seven official bracelet events as the Series moves to Cannes, France after four years in London, England. In another first, Guillaume Humbert became the first Swiss national to win a bracelet, taking the 2,500 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event and its €215,999 ($288,899) first prize.
The 26-year old Humbert is a bar man at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps who plays online poker during the offseason, when he isn’t as busy working long hours to keep the drinks flowing for tourists. Not only was this event the first live tournament in which he had ever cashed, it was the first live tournament in which he had ever played. He had actually planned on playing at the WSOP in Las Vegas this year, but made the very mature decision to skip it, feeling that he just wasn’t ready for such stakes and pressure. Rather than spending the time and money to fly out only to end up over his head, he saved his bankroll and kept playing online. But when he found out the WSOPE was going to be in France, just next door to Switzerland, he decided it was worth a shot.
Entering final table play, Humbert was the second-shortest stack of the six players remaining with just 364,000 chips, 300,000 behind the chip leader Matan Krakow. He fell even further back, sitting at just 160,000 at one point when it was four-handed. That total was just half that of Roy Finlay in third place and more than 1,000,000 behind the Azusa Maeda, the chip leader.
He made a run, of course, doubling-up through Krakow with A-K versus 7-4 suited to boost himself to 400,000, though he was still the short stack. About an hour later, he took Krakow out with A-Q against J-T. Both players made a pair, but obviously Krakow’s couldn’t top Humbert’s.
Humbert kept climbing, moving over the million chip mark, and eventually found himself heads-up with Japan’s Maeda. Maeda had the advantage going into heads-up play, 1,600,000 to 1,100,000. During the one-on-one match, Humbert put the screws to Maeda, using a pressure game to win lots of small pots through folds by his opponent. About an hour into heads-up play, Humbert had taken the lead.
At that point, Humber never looked back, continuing to widen the gap between himself and Maeda until he finally struck the final blow. Maeda was short stacked and limped in from the button. Humbert checked his blind and the two saw a flop of 9-6-7. Humbert checked again and Maeda moved all-in with 4-3 of diamonds, which gave him a gut-shot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. Humbert insta-called with 5-8, having flopped a straight. It was academic from there, as nothing helped Maeda, preventing him from being the first WSOP bracelet winner from Japan.
When asked by tournament officials what his plans were for the prize money, Humbert said, “I am going to put some of the money away so I can maybe open up some kind of bar business. But it is early to tell. I have not thought about that yet.”
“I can’t believe it,” Humber said of his win. “It’s amazing. This is my first live tournament. I can’t believe this has happened to me.”