The Foxwoods World Poker Finals came
down to a new face at a World Poker Tour final table versus a very familiar
one. Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little was able to turn his 4th WPT final table
appearance into his second victory with his heads up win over relative newcomer
Jonathan Jaffe.
To take the title, Little also
outlasted Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and David “The Dragon” Pham. Both players
have plenty of experience under the lights and cameras of a televised WPT set,
but neither has been able to claim a title. For Pham it was his 7th final table
appearance without a victory.
Once he got past the two big names,
Little still had a major obstacle to overcome en route to his second title. For
most of the tournament, Jon Jaffe was at or near the top of the chip counts and
the same was true at the final table. When it was down to six, Jaffe controlled
much of the early action, and even after doubling up a couple of the short
stacks he still held the chip lead. Once amateur Charles Marchese was eliminated
in 3rd place by Little, Jaffe was still slightly ahead in chips going into the
heads up battle.
Before squaring off against Jaffe,
Little was able to eliminate Matusow in 6th place ($124,048) and Jack
Schanbacher in 5th ($182,196). During the elimination of Schanbacher, Little
also grabbed about half of Pham’s stack, leaving “The Dragon” short stacked and
in push-or-fold mode. Push he did, and when his pocket deuces lost a race to
Marchese, Pham bowed out in 4th place ($240,344).
The Cinderella story ended for Marchese
when he ran his A-J into Little’s pocket queens, but the amateur and his lively
group of family and friends seemed more than happy with the 3rd place finish
and $337,256 that went with it.
Heads up play started just before 11pm
EST and it was a full five hours later before Little emerged victorious. Little
and Jaffe went back and forth time and time again. One would get to a 3-to-1
chip lead and the other would double. Both players were all in numerous times,
but were always able to pull out the timely double up. Finally, as the clock
worked towards 4am, Little was down more than 3-to-1 in chips, but doubled up.
Then, he doubled again to take the chip lead. One more big hand later and it
was all over as Little added another title to his resume and another $1,120,310
to his bank account.
For Jaffe, his tournament ended with
some disappointment, but also with a very solid finish and a great showing. For
his 2nd place finish, he earned $670,636 to go along with the respect gained
from an impressive run in a major event.
There are a lot of great players that
have made it to numerous WPT final tables, including Pham and Matusow, but the
number of players that can get there and regularly close the deal is not nearly
as large. Little has been able to put up numbers these past two years that show
he not only knows how to get there, but that once he is there he knows what to
do to win. In his four final table appearances he has two victories, a 2nd
place finish (to a very tough opponent in Scott Clements at one of the toughest
final table lineups in WPT history), and a 5th place finish at his first WPT
final table. Little is proving that his World Poker Tour Player of the Year
title was no fluke and that he is a major threat at any tournament he shows up
to play.
Here are the results for the 2008
Foxwoods World Poker Finals WPT final table:
