The much-hyped $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event
at the WSOP attracted 143 of the top players in the world, and it was
no surprise when the final table was revealed to be one of the
toughest in the history of tournament poker. Just as anticipated the
cream had risen leaving only poker's eliete players left to abttle it
out for the bracelet.
Nine professional players with a combined 37 bracelets between them composed the final table. Three of the players, Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, and Phil Ivey, were regulars at Bellagio's "Big Game", the biggest-stakes public game in the world. Entering the beginning of play, seating and chip counts for the final table were:
1 - Jim Bechtel $841,000
2 - Doyle
Brunson $1,227,000
3 - Chip Reese $1,756,000
4 - Dewey Tomko
$438,000
5 - Andy Bloch $934,000
6 - T.J. Cloutier $351,000
7 - David Singer $745,000
8 -
Patrik Antonius $13,000
9 - Phil Ivey $885,000
Fan Favorite Doyle Brunson, who was going for his record 11th WSOP bracelet, went out in 8th place. Brunson started the day 2nd in chips but lost a huge pot to Reese to start the day (Reese later admitted in post-tournament interviews that he had pocket Kings, but the hand was not revealed during play), then lost a coin flip holding K-J to T.J. Cloutier's pocket 9's. Crippled, Brunson threw in his last few chips two hands later with J-6 offsuit and was busted by Jim Bechtel's A-Q on a Q-high flop.
After playing for 19 hours yesterday and receiving less than a half-day break before play started up again, fatigue may have played a factor in Brunson and Tomko's early bustouts. Before the tournament started, Tomko admitted, "I'm exhausted. I'm tired, I didn't get no sleep at all. I drank so much tea yesterday and what happened was, when I tried to go to bed I just stared at the ceiling, too much caffeine. I'm not used to [marathon sessions] any more, I used to do it all the time but I don't do it much any more so I'm pretty tired."
After many grueling hours of top-notch poker it came down to Andy Bloch and Chip Reese playing heads-up for the title. They started faily even in chips and the two would stay pretty much even for hours, with both playing excellent poker. They traded the chip lead back and forth numerous times by playing small pots and stealing frequently from each other preflop. Finally, into the seventh hour of heads-up play, a huge pot was raked in by Reese when, on a flop of 9s-8d-3d, Reese check-raised Bloch all-in with the Kd-6d while Bloch made a big call with 9-7 for top pair. After both players played so well the entire day and seemed to be so evenly matched, it was both fitting and sad that the end had to come down to a coinflip situation. Reese made his flush on the turn when the 5d hit, leaving Bloch drawing dead and crippled to just a few hundred thousand chips left.
After seeing both players take turns
moving in preflop every hand, the end finally came 11 hands later
when Reese pushed with A-Q and Bloch called with the 9-8. Bloch's
hand failed to improve and Reese's ace-high took the pot along with
his first WSOP bracelet since 1982 (3 in total). Reese took home a
first place prize of $1,784,640, with Bloch earning $1,029,600 for
2nd.
Bloch admitted that the 7-hour battle was the longest heads-up final table he'd ever played in while Reese jokingly said, "We played so long, I forgot we played limit the last two days." It was certainly an epic battle, and a fitting but sad end to one of the most classic tournaments in poker history.
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