WPT Champ Bellagio April 08

Early on day 5 of the WPT Championship at the Bellagio Gus Hansen took a tough beat at the hands of David Chiu.  At the time Gus took Chiu hitting his 3 outer on the turn in stride, but looking back on it now he must really wish his hand had held up and Chiu had been eliminated.  After surviving the all in on day 5 Chiu went on to make the final table along with Gus Hansen and the two ended up heads up for the title.

Throughout the tournament the story was Gus Hansen.  He went into the final table with the chip lead, and once there put on a clinic in how to hit hands and bust players.  In a mere 22 hands Gus single handedly cut the field from 6 down to 2 and had amassed a 23 million to 4 million chip lead over Chiu.

The tournament started with 545 players entering the $25k buyin event.  The top 100 players in the field made the money, and first place was an impressive $3.3 million, with second place getting $1.7 million and third place falling just under a million at $900k.  Not a bad weeks work for anyone making their way to the final 3.

After the first 22 hands of televised play the storylines were already being developed around Hansen’s 4th WPT title and quite possibly the quickest final table in WPT history.  Gus had a 23 to 4 chip advantage and was running as hot as a mid-August day in Arizona.  If someone had set the line at 5 more hands there would have been a line of people jumping up to take the under. 

Instead of minutes, heads up play took hours.  And Gus Hansen did not come out on top.  A chip and a chair, right?  David Chiu had more than a chip, but compared to Hansen’s stack not much more.  The improved structure of WPT final tables gave him a little room to work though and he took advantage, chipping up and doubling up until he finally took the chip lead and then was able to finish Gus off by taking his turn at hitting a hand on the river. 

Chiu called Hansen’s all in bet on the turn and showed a flush draw and a pair of aces.  He was behind to Hansen’s flopped two pair, but had plenty of outs and the ace of hearts on the river was one of the cards he was looking for.  His trip aces won the pot and the tournament and left a stunned Hansen wondering what had happened to his 6-1 chip lead going into heads up play. 

On his way to building that chip lead Hansen busted Jeff King in 6th ($263,815) when his suited T9 outran King’s AQ by hitting a ten on the river.  He then eliminated Tommy Le when both players flopped a set on a Q-T-5 board.  Hansen had Le notched with a set of tens against a set of fives and Le saw himself out of the tournament in just a couple of orbits for a 5th place finish worth $395,725.

At this point Hansen had a solid chip lead, but Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll had been able to grab a few pots from Gus without going to showdown and also had a large stack.  The Carroll raised Hansen after Gus had made an opening raise preflop.  Gus called and on the Q-J-6 flop with two diamonds Cory checked to Gus who made a huge overbet by just moving in.  The pot had about 3 million chips in it and Gus effectively bet the 6.5 million Carroll had left.  Cory thought for a while, finally deciding out loud that Gus was much more likely to have a draw than a queen and Cory called with AJ, including the ace of diamonds.  He was right, Hansen had the 7-5 of diamonds for a flush draw.  True to form though, Gus hit a diamond on the river and went from being a large chip leader to being a massive chip leader and eliminating the only player that had given him any trouble at all at the final table.

Cory’s 4th place finish brought $593,645 and left the final table 3 handed.  Gus was left with John Roveto and David Chiu, who had played somewhere in the range of zero pots up to this point. 

A couple of hands later Roveto was all in preflop with pocket kings against Hansen’s AT suited.  To the surprise of no one watching the final table Gus flopped an open ended straight draw and filled it on the river to send Roveto home in 3rd with just under a million dollars.

After that the hot streak ended for Gus, David Chiu turned in an impressive heads up performance and was rewarded with the victory in a dramatic and entertaining fashion that has to be one of the best comebacks in WPT history.

PokerRoad members Barry Greenstein, Gavin Smith and Haralabos Voulgaris all came up short of the money while Joe Sebok finished in 48th place for $52,765.