Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The 2009 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final table was just about as stacked as you could ask. Granted it would have been nice to see Texas Dolly or Men “The Master” make it through. Tony Cousineau has a shot and who wouldn’t have loved to see former footie star Teddy Sheringham take a crack at the poker stars for a bracelet. No one would complain about having Liz Lieu amongst the final table players. All that being said, we had two member of the WSOP November Nine (James Akenhead and Antoine Saout), the father of a November Nine’r (Jeff Shulman, born of Barry Shulman), two time WSOP bracelet winner Chris Bjorin, 2009 WSOP bracelet winner Matt Hawrilenko, monster player Jason Mercier, and some casual player named Daniel Negreanu.
My completely biased goal of seeing James Akenhead win the title for Team Full Tilt before turning his attention to the big bracelet in November was shot down in flames early. Akenhead busted in 9th but still accomplished a fantastic feat. That left just Matt Hawrilenko as the last Full Tilt pro standing in the field, and out he goes in 8th place. That left me “watching” a 7 handed table for the WSOPE Main Event title and I could be completely unbiased and professional.
It would be great to see a huge run by the other member of the November Nine, Antoine Saout, for a great story leading into that final table. Saout was out in 7th. Quiet Chris Bjorin came to the table with 2 bracelets and nearly $4,000,000 in career earnings. He doesn’t get a lot of press outside the poker media, this time he walked out the door in 6th place. Markus Ristola was a complete unknown to me, apparently an up and coming Finnish player. Out in 5th, thus shrinking the field to a level easily followed and no more hurried research necessary.
All four remaining players previously won WSOP bracelets. Daniel Negreanu with 4 titles. Jason Mercier, Barry Shulman, and Praz Bansi with one each. It was the long fought battle everyone expected. Last year’s marathon heads up match between John Juanda and Stanislav Alekhin went into the morning, this one came damn near sunrise itself. Mercier dropped in 4th and Bansi followed in 3rd leaving a monster match between Shulman and Kid Poker. There were some incredible swings throughout play and I would just butcher the re-telling of it if I tried. I was following along with the PokerNews.com coverage, you can find all of it here.
In the end Negreanu was unable to overcome a classic suck-resuck when he was just a lonely river card away from the winning the WSOPE Main Event title. That bracelet will now belong to Cardplayer Media mogul Barry Shulman who hopes the luck will rub off on his son Jeff when he begins play with the November Nine.
This was a great run up to the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event final table coming in just a few short weeks. Standby for more coverage of the November Nine as we get closer.
No word yet on whether Barry Shulman will follow his son’s example with the bracelet and “throw it in the garbage”.
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