On Tuesday night, the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event aired on ESPN. As ESPN announcer Norman Chad described, the group of nine had five pairs of sunglasses, five baseball caps, one visor, three hoodies, and two sets of earnings.
Matt Jarvis dropped 50% of his stack early after a failed bluff with A-J on a board of 2-5-10-7-8. Joseph Cheong held 10-6 in the hand for top pair and Jarvis’ rocky 2010 WSOP Main Event final table began. Soi Nguyen, the lone amateur at the final table, was bumped in ninth place after his A-K could not outrace Jason Senti’s pocket queens. Nguyen earned $811,000 for his storybook run in poker’s most prestigious tournament.
After bleeding half of his stack, Jarvis hit the rail in eighth place when his pocket nines fell short of Michael Mizrachi’s A-Q of diamonds. “The Grinder” flopped trip queens, but Jarvis turned a boat when a nine fell. However, the Canuck came up short on the river, which was an ace. Chad quipped, “It’s not possible” and Mizrachi, who had half of his chips at risk, shot up to third on the leaderboard with a better full house. Jarvis’ final hand was nearly identical to one played between Chris Moneymaker and Phil Ivey in the 2003 Main Event.
Cheong claimed a pot worth 30 million to become the chip leader at the Penn and Teller Theater, one of over 20 lead changes that occurred at the final table. Then, Senti moved all-in for his last 16 big blinds with K-7 and received a taker in Cheong, who turned over A-9 of clubs. Senti remarked, “That’s bad,” but watched as a four-diamond board gave him a flush.
Holding K-7 of spades for a flush draw on a flop of Q-5-Q with two of the suit, Filippo Candio raised all-in for 18 million, prompting Jonathan Duhamel to muck pocket aces and John Racener to fold pocket tens. Then, Senti was eliminated at the hands of Cheong with A-K against the eventual third place finisher’s wired pair of tens. Cheong spiked a straight on the river to seal Senti’s respectable seventh place showing.
John Dolan was ousted in sixth place after running Q-5 of diamonds into pocket fours. Treading in the opposite direction was Racener, who doubled up through Mizrachi with A-K against A-8 of diamonds.
The defining pot of five-handed play saw Racener raise to 2.3 million with A-Q of spades and Duhamel 3bet all-in with Big Slick. Racener called all-in and found a queen on the flop to double up. After entering final table play as the overwhelming chip leader, Duhamel was now nursing the short stack. ESPN commentator Lon McEachern gave his take on Racener’s double up: “For the hockey playing Duhamel, that was like a cross-check to the teeth.”
On the very next hand, Duhamel, seemingly on tilt, got his chips in with A-9 against Mizrachi’s pocket threes. The Canadian turned trips to double up and Mizrachi hit the rail shortly thereafter in fifth place. Mizrachi ran top pair into Duhamel’s overpair in his final hand, sending the Full Tilt Poker pro and 2010 bracelet winner into the Las Vegas night. The Mizrachi crew would later celebrate their phenomenal WSOP run at the Wynn.
Candio, who was completely silent following the Main Event’s dinner break, was ousted in fourth place. Candio was all-in pre-flop with K-Q of diamonds and Cheong asked for a count before looking him up with A-3 of clubs. Cheong spiked an ace on the flop and had the Italian drawing dead to the river.
Duhamel picked up a pot worth 57 million after rivering a pair of kings and then the hand of the night occurred. Cheong 6bet all-in before the flop with A-7 and Duhamel called all-in with two ladies to set up the largest pot in WSOP history at 176 million. The board came 3-9-2-6-8 and Duhamel stacked 80% of the chips in play. Cheong’s stack dove to just five big blinds and he was eliminated a few minutes later.
Two hands from heads-up play were shown on ESPN, but Racener’s lone double up did not make it to air. In the final hand of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, Racener called all-in before the flop with K-8 of diamonds and could not draw out on Duhamel’s A-J. Reigning champ Joe Cada and Tournament Director Jack Effel presented Duhamel with the bracelet and confetti flew onto the Penn and Teller Theater stage as the WSOP crowned its first Canadian Main Event winner.
The entire final table, which took about 17 hours of real time, aired on ESPN for two hours and five minutes. If you missed it, you can catch a replay in primetime this Sunday at 8:00pm ET on ESPN2.
