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Poker News Round-up: Week #46

By Adam Noone, 13/11/2009

And so, after an action packed and eagerly anticipated final table at the Rio, the November Nine have been reduced to one lucky winner who is now $8.5 million richer. It wasn’t short stacked James Akenhead, who after a fortunate treble up could do nothing when he ran KK into Kevin Schaffel’s AA. Nor was it the man who took James’ chips after he once again held aces versus Eric Buchman’s kings which miraculously turned into quads to send play seven handed. Coming into the final table Darvin Moon held the biggest percentage of chips in play since Greg Raymer swept all before him in 2004, but some questionable plays saw him lose a lot of chips in the early stages. That included check raising Steve Begleiter to 15 million on a flop of 2 3 4 only to fold to an all in re-raise of less than 6 million more. It is interesting to note that in this hand Moon held K Q but after wandering over to his wife in the crowd claimed that had binned pocket queens because he put Begleiter on A K and didn’t want to give him another 6 million more. It was an extraordinary moment as Moon either misread his hand and then proceeded to play it as badly as possible or was just too embarrassed to have played the hand that way and then lied to his wife about it. Either way, it was a pretty dire move that cost him the chip lead. That situation looked set to deteriorate further when holding A Q he called Phil Ivey’s pre flop shove and was in bad shape against A K. This was the moment when the legendary Darvin Moon luck kicked in though and a queen as the door card put an end to Ivey’s hopes for another year.

Easy come, easy go seemed to be the approach for Moon as he then went on to double up Antoine Saout cheaply before again getting it all in with A Q and finding himself well behind. This time it was against Steve Begleiter who held Q Q but once again the board came to the rescue of Moon as an ace appeared on the river to restore him as chip leader.

Jeff Shulman (tutored by Phil Hellmuth) had been playing a pretty tight game and was unlucky to lose with an overpair to Joe Cada’s pocket threes, then come out on the wrong side of a race to bust out in fifth. So with four left the crowd favourites had gone but the logger from Maryland was still in his seat and still had a big stack. Antoine Saout took over as chip leader when his A K held up against Eric Buchman’s shove with A Q and shortly afterwards Buchman was also on his way out of the Penn & Teller Theatre in fourth place.

Having already hit a two outer against Shulman, Cada pulled a miracle once again as his shove with deuces was snap called by Saout holding queens. Another flopped set for Cada though crushed Saout’s dreams and like Shulman before him he also went out soon after when losing a race to Cada. Whilst waiting for the cards to be dealt during Saout’s exit hand Cada rather unsportingly claimed that this race was for the tournament, but if he was dismissive of Moon’s chances heads up then he more than anyone else should have been aware of how much luck can play a factor in these situations. The way he had been running Moon had been hotter than the sun at times, but somehow Cada had been even luckier still and despite being down to just 1% of the chips in play at one point he now held a big lead going into the final day’s play.

New world champion Joe Cada

On the very first hand of heads up play, many would have got all the chips in the middle straight away with two big hands dealt, but Moon’s insistence on slow playing his pocket queens meant that he had to slow down when a king and ace fell, making do with a much smaller pot instead. Moon went on to take the chip lead, and Cada was forced to admit that he was up against an opponent much trickier than he had anticipated. A big call for all his chips with second pair by Cada was rewarded as Moon’s straight draw came to nothing, and once again Cada was ahead. Another pair of nines in the hole was good enough for Cada to ship it all in soon after, and despite a reluctance to build a pot with two queens Moon wasted little time in calling off his whole stack with Q J. He was actually in much better shape than he might often find himself in with a call like that but there was to be no more help for Moon from the dealer and the four month long search for a champion came to an end. Cada becomes the youngest WSOP main event champion ever after slipping the noose on numerous occasions, but nobody finishes on top of a field of this size without some luck along the way.

Another WPT title for Cimpan

The Rio has obviously been the focus of attention for most in the poker world over the past few days but there has actually been high stakes action elsewhere as another WPT champion was crowned at Foxwoods. Many pros are reluctant to go to Mashantucket at the best of times, let alone when they can go to Vegas to sweat Ivey for millions of dollars in prop bets, so it wasn’t the most illustrious of line ups but 353 entries made for a reasonable attendance. A tough final table saw Eric Froehlich, Lee Markholt, Curt Kohlberg, Cornel Cimpan, Soheil Shamseddin and Matthew Stout face off against one another for the World Poker Finals title and $910,058 first prize. As with the WSOP final table bad beats were to play a key part in the outcome of this tournament, which saw Cimpan eventually overturn a big chip deficit against Shamseddin to gain victory. It has been a magnificent year for Cimpan who collects his second WPT win of 2009 after also winning the LA Poker Classic in February.

In the world of televised poker, the conclusion to Late Night Poker was broadcast this week as Full Tilt pros Gus Hansen, Huck Seed and Patrik Antonius battled against Annette Obrestad, Tim West, Sam Trickett and an unusually subdued Tony G. Hansen appeared to be taking control of the table and when Obrestad ran out of lucky suck outs, he was in good shape as he and Huck Seed fought it out heads up. A patient approach early on for Seed was rewarded with a rush of cards in the final stages and there was no stopping him as the former world champion added another title to his name.

New Full Tilt pro Tom Dwan

Joining Hansen and Antonius on Team Full Tilt will be Tom Dwan who was unveiled a few days ago as the latest signing to the stable. There is plenty of gossip around the various poker forums about the supposed red pro curse which doomswitches anyone whose name is turned red, and the action on the high stakes tables this week will only have added fuel to the fire. For four consecutive nights this week Dwan has lost huge amounts, dropping over $3 million to Swedish based Isildur1 alone. That included a single pot of $695,000 when Dwan was happy to six bet all in pre flop with A K and find himself in terrible shape against Isildur’s pocket aces. There is surely plenty left in the durrrr coffers yet, but a few wins against softer opposition wouldn’t go amiss to restore the bank balance. Which brings us nicely to Sammy George who will finally get to play his live heads up challenge match with Dwan later this month. Originally scheduled to take place around the time of WSOPE and EPT London, firm dates have now been revealed for the challenge which will run from 17th to 19th November. Also facing Dwan in the three match series will be Ilari Sahamies aka Ziigmund and Italian player Marcelo Marigliano. With each match having a $1 million prize pool, this represents an opportunity for Dwan to turn things around quickly, or else find himself in an even bigger hole to end the year in.

On a final note this is to be the last of these news reports for the foreseeable future as I need to get back to playing poker a little more seriously, so I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read these articles and good bye for now.

Adam Noone is a Full Tilt Pro, Play with him and the Mob at Full Tilt Poker

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