2010 WSOP Main Event Final Table: Limping to the Finish

Last night, Jonathan Duhamel became the first Canadian to win the World Series of Poker Main Event, finishing off the short-stacked John Racener of Florida in just 43 hands to claim the bracelet and the $8,944,310 that went with it.

Was a little anticlimactic last night. Seemed destined to be that way, given that Duhamel started with 86% of the chips, and thus Racener needed a quick double-up or two for the pair to be able to engage in a “fair” fight.

Was searching around some more after my post yesterday about heads-up play at the WSOP ME. Statistics get fuzzy prior to 2000, but it looked as though the last time a player was down this much heads-up and came back to win was 1991. Don Holt apparently had a huge lead on Brad Daugherty -- I have seen it referred to as a “10-to-1” advantage as well as 1.9 million to 250,000 -- before Daugherty came back to win.

On Saturday, Racener had frequently demonstrated passive play throughout the day and night, a strategy which ultimately -- thanks in part to the way the cards fell and the approaches chosen by some of the other players -- served him well enough to allow him to sneak into the final two.

It wasn’t that surprising, then, to see Racener continue in that same, non-aggressive vein last night, given his short-stacked status. That said, it was a little unexpected to see Racener “turtle up” to the extent that he did. At times it almost seemed like he was nursing a short stack on the cash bubble or something, only he couldn’t fold his way into any more cash here.

He had little room to maneuver, of course.

For the first 10 hands last night the blinds were 600,000/1,200,000, though with a 200,000-chip ante on top that we might just think of it as 800K/1.4 million. Racener hovered around his starting stack of 30 million for that entire stretch, so in essence he was a shade above the 20 big blind range for most of those initial hands.

On the 11th hand of heads-up play the blinds moved to 800,000/1,600,000, again with a 200,000 ante. Soon Racener dipped below the 20 BB range, reducing his options even further. His stack continued to dwindle, and by the very end he was down to less than 15 million (to Duhamel’s 200 million-plus).

Looking over the 43 hands, it wasn’t until Hand #30 -- the 15th time Racener had the button -- that the Floridian opened with a raise. The first 14 times he either limped (12 times) or open-folded (twice). Meanwhile, Duhamel was mostly opening with standard raises with his big stack, doing so 13 of those first 15 times he had the button.

Interestingly, that first time Racener did finally open with a raise, Duhamel responded with an all-in reraise, and Racener let it go. Following that one, both players either limped or folded their buttons for the next eight hands.

Then came a short sequence of uncalled, all-in shoves from both players. Finally, Racener called Duhamel’s all-in raise on Hand #43 and his failed to catch up to the Canadian’s .

In the end, then, Racener had the button 21 times last night, and only opened with a raise twice -- once on that Hand #30, then again when he pushed all in and didn’t get a call on the penultimate Hand #42.

Racener was obviously in a tight spot, and it’s hard to be too critical given the way his short stack limited his options. With 15-20 big blinds, he couldn’t really mess around with standard preflop raises that much, as doing so wouldn’t leave him with enough to continuation bet unless it were to push all in.

The issue is mostly academic, anyway. Racener’s chip disadvantage was so large, it was probably the case that any strategy he chose was more likely than not to fail. Still, would’ve been nice to see a bit more fight in last night’s battle.

Will be watching ESPN’s rapidly-packaged highlight show tonight, for sure. Last year a total of 32 out of the 364 final table hands were shown, with the program lasting about two-and-a-half hours. Here’s a rundown of all 32 hands shown, by the way.

I imagine they’ll be allotted a similar amount of time for the show tonight, so we’re probably going to see around 30 of the hands played. Will be most interested, of course, in those hands without showdowns, in which we didn’t learn of players’ holdings when following the action. (Then again, now that I think about it, those are precisely the hands that are less likely to be featured tonight!)

I still can’t bring myself to get fully behind the whole final table delay ideer, I’m afraid. Has been a lot of fun, once again, to relive the July portion of the WSOP ME story over the last few months, and Saturday’s action did provide a lot of entertainment. But even though the “narrative” has been well-constructed once again, I think it is now set up in such a way that the ending is always likely to prove at least somewhat anticlimactic.

In other words, you might say Racener wasn’t the only one limping last night. Everybody was.

2010 WSOP Main Event Final Table: Can Racener Defy Odds, History?

Tonight Jonathan Duhamel will try to turn his better than 6-to-1 chip lead over John Racener into a World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet.

The Poker Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Dan Harrington and Erik Seidel is set to take place there in the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino at 7:30 p.m. Vegas time. Then at 8 p.m. Duhamel and Racener will be introduced, with cards scheduled to go in the air shortly thereafter.

Duhamel’s huge lead got me wondering whether Racener’s deficit might be the largest ever at the start of heads-up play. The hoodie-wearing Canadian will have 188,950,000 chips when the first hand is dealt tonight, while the gum-chewing Floridian will have but 30,750,000.

That 158 million-plus chip advantage is most certainly the largest ever to start heads-up play at the WSOP Main Event, quantity-wise. But how about in relative terms? With almost exactly 86% of the chips to start heads-up play, is Duhamel beginning tonight with the biggest-ever head start over his opponent in terms of the the percentage of total chips?

The answer is no.

Just looking back at the previous decade, there are a couple of examples in which a player had an even greater advantage to start heads-up play. Take a look:

2009 -- Joe Cada 135,950,000 (69.8%), Darvin Moon 58,850,000 (30.2%)
2008 -- Peter Eastgate 80,300,000 (58.7%), Ivan Demidov 56,600,000 (41.3%)
2007 -- Jerry Yang 104,450,000 (81.9%), Tuan Lam 23,025,000 (18.1%)
2006 -- Jamie Gold 78,975,000 (87.6%), Paul Wasicka 11,225,000 (12.4%)
2005 -- Joe Hachem 38,740,000 (68.9%), Steve Dannenmann 17,450,000 (31.1%)
2004 -- Greg Raymer 17,125,000 (67.5%), David Williams 8,240,000 (32.5%)
2003 -- Chris Moneymaker 5,490,000 (65.4%), Sam Farha 2,900,000 (34.6%)
2002 -- Robert Varkonyi 5,105,000 (80.9%), Julian Gardner 1,205,000 (19.1%)
2001 -- Carlos Mortensen ~4 million (66.7%), Dewey Tomko ~2 million (33.33%)
2000 -- Chris Ferguson ~4.6 million (90.2%), T.J. Cloutier ~500,000 (9.8%)

Looks like Jamie Gold had a slightly bigger advantage over Paul Wasicka in 2006 than Duhamel has over Racener. And while the numbers are approximate, it appears Ferguson had about a 10-to-1 chip lead over Cloutier in 2000.

By the way, looking over that list, do you notice a trend? That’s right. In each of the last 10 years at the WSOP Main Event, the player with the most chips to start heads-up play eventually won the bracelet.

Some of the matches were brief. Hachem and Dannenmann played just six hands in 2005. Gold and Wasicka didn't play much longer, lasting just 20 minutes. Other matches went on much longer and saw changes in the chip lead. Remember how Darvin Moon held the lead briefly last year during his 88-hand battle with Joe Cada?

But all 10 years, the player with the most chips going into heads-up play would be the only one left with chips when it concluded.

Statistics are harder to track down prior to 2000, but most accounts of the 1999 WSOP Main Event report that eventual winner Noel Furlong and runner-up Alan Goehring began their heads-up battle with virtually even stacks. Can say more definitively, though, that in 1998 -- the year Scotty Nguyen defeated Kevin McBride to win the bracelet -- the winner did not start that heads-up battle with the lead. McBride had something like 2.2 million to start there, while the Prince of Poker had about 1.3 million.

Odds are against Racener to break the streak, obviously. And looking at how both Duhamel and Racener played on Saturday, it certainly appears Duhamel has more than just a chip advantage going for him, having demonstrated a lot more versatility in his play than did Racener as they played down from nine to two.

But Racener was relatively short for much of the day, and thus his options often were relatively limited. And, of course, heads-up play always introduces a different dynamic which sometimes affects players’ approaches, causing them to play differently -- and/or better or worse -- than they did before.

What’s your prediction?

2010 WSOP Main Event Final Table: Cheong Strong? Or Just Wrong?

It was a blow-up. A meltdown. Spewing at the highest magnitude. An implosion. Millions of chips -- and dollars -- pissed away.

It was baller. Fifth-level thinking. An heroic move. Ballsy. Epic. Sick.

You decide.

After 212 hands at the final table, just three players remained from the 7,319 who had entered the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. More than $8.9 million awaited the winner. The runner-up was due more than $5.5 million, with $4.13 million going to the next one out.

The blinds were 600,000/1,200,000 (with 200,000 antes). John Racener was sitting in a distant third with about 36 million (30 big blinds) when he began the hand by folding from the button. Joseph Cheong, then leading with something in the neighborhood of 90 million (75 BBs), opened with a raise to 2.9 million from the small blind. Jonathan Duhamel, sitting in the big blind with about 83 million or so to start the hand (70 BBs), responded by reraising to 6.75 million.

The action back on Cheong, he made it 14.25 million to go, then Duhamel reraised once again to 22.75 million. That’s when Cheong made the big push all in, and Duhamel made the call.

No, Cheong didn’t have aces. Or kings. Or A-K. Cheong had but , and was looking for an ace to overcome Duhamel’s . The board ran out , and just like that Duhamel had 177 million or so while Cheong was suddenly down to around 5 million.

Cheong would double up once, then win two more small pots when his all-in raises before the flop went uncalled. But then, just half a dozen hands after losing the biggest pot in WSOP history (chip-wise), Cheong -- seemingly a lock to make it to heads-up just a few minutes before -- was eliminated in third.

There were a number of other high-drama hands yesterday.

Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi’s knockout of Matt Jarvis in eighth place in which the latter was all in before the flop with pocket nines against Mizrachi’s was one. The community cards came , meaning both players had the lead two times -- Jarvis preflop and on the turn, and Mizrachi on the flop and on the river. The hand also uncannily recalled a similar one from the 2003 WSOP Main Event in which Chris Moneymaker knocked out Phil Ivey in 10th place, although in that history-altering hand the betting concluded on the turn.

Jason Senti’s elimination in seventh at the hands of Cheong had a similar, punch-to-the-gut feel. All in with versus Cheong’s pocket tens, Senti flopped trip kings, but running turn and river cards gave Cheong a king-high straight and the hand.

A little later, the two players who would ultimately make it to heads up -- Racener and Duhamel -- each survived all-in situations on back-to-back hands.

First Racener doubled through Duhamel with versus Duhamel’s when a queen flopped, and Racener’s hand held. On the very next hand, Duhamel would be all in with versus Mizrachi’s pocket treys. He’d hit a nine on that flop and survive.

Duhamel would subsequently knock out Mizrachi in fifth place in a hand in which the Canadian sneakily played pocket aces to trap the Grinder. Cheong would next eliminate a short-stacked Filippo Candio in fourth. Then the two big stacks would battle back and forth for the next two dozen hands before the big one. The big, big, big one.

I had thought of Cheong -- known as “subiime” online -- as the player to watch among these final nine. Even suggested on Friday that I considered him a decent pick to win the sucker. And he certainly helped make a highly entertaining final table even more interesting, his aggression in the decisive hand versus Duhamel just one of many, many examples of such throughout the night. And for most of the night Cheong pretty clearly showed he was indeed one of the strongest players at the table.

Then came Hand Number 213. Where it all went wrong.

Barring any strangeness Monday night -- when Duhamel will carry a more than 5-to-1 chip lead into heads-up play versus Racener -- I think it is probably safe to assume that Cheong’s six-bet shove with A-7-offsuit will undoubtedly be the most discussed decision of the 2010 WSOP Main Event final table. How will it be remembered?

You decide.

(EDIT [added 12/3/10]: For more on this amazing hand, check out Andrew "Foucault" Brokos’ analysis for the Two Plus Two Magazine, “Joseph Cheong’s WSOP Final Table ‘Blow Up.’”)

TWIP Notes

An especially interesting episode of “This Week in Poker” yesterday, I thought.

The Entities from Wicked Chops managed to cram four guests into the less-than-hour-and-a-half long program. I'd say three of those four guests shared thoughts and/or opinions which might’ve caused some viewers to utter the catch-phrase of Mel Allen, longtime Yankees broadcaster and host of “This Week in Baseball.”

Don’t tell me you don’t remember...! What did Allen always say at the end of the weekly “TWIB notes” segment?

“How about that!”

Dan Fleyshman, CEO of Victory Poker and seventh-place finisher at last month’s WSOPE Main Event, was in the studio. Fleyshman shared a lot of interesting views about the state of online poker at present, particularly in the United States where we remained mired in ambiguity, legally speaking. He expressed cautious optimism about the eventual regulation of online poker in the U.S., though noted that we’re still at least a couple of years away from such occurring.

He also had some things to say about the upcoming WSOP November Nine and sponsorships. If I heard him correctly, Fleyshman mentioned that last year’s chip leader (Darvin Moon) had been offered $300,000 by both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to wear their patches, but had turned down the offers.

Last fall some of the rumors suggested Moon had been offered as much as $1 million to get himself patched up, although most had guessed something less than that. Last year Paul Leggett, COO of Tokwiro Enterprises (then owner of UltimateBet), was interviewed about the topic over on Poker News Daily, and while he didn’t confirm exact figures, an editor’s note suggested $350,000 to have been the offered sum. (Tip of the fedora to Kevmath for help recalling that item.)

Another guest on the show, November Niner John Racener, was also asked about the wearing of logos at the final table, specifically who among the November Niners being sponsored by Full Tilt Poker will be the ones to sport FTP patches.

Over on Full Tilt’s site, they are currently listing seven of the nine as part of their stable -- Filippo Candio, Joseph Cheong, John Dolan, Matthew Jarvis, Michael Mizrachi, Soi Nguyen, and Racener. (The other two -- Jonathan Duhamel and Jason Senti -- have PokerStars’ backing.)

Racener was asked the question because of the restriction listed in the WSOP rules that limits the number of players who can wear a single site’s logos at a televised table. According to the rule (Rule 50, section B), “During all events taped for television coverage, and at the start of each television taping day, no more than three (3) players at the Final Table -- and all other tables featured for television coverage -- will be allowed to wear apparel with logos, patches or promotional language from the same entity.”

Racener initially seemed under the impression that all seven of the FTP players would be wearing garb representing the site. However, further discussion seemed to reveal that he was assuming as much because he hadn’t been told otherwise.

Kind of interesting to see how FTP has kept even their players in the dark regarding this decision, a strategy which Fleyshman -- who remains interested in possibly having a November Niner don a Victory patch -- commended as strategically sound insofar as all seven necessarily remain identified with FTP throughout this long build-up to the final table.

Another “how about that” moment from Racener’s interview came up when he was asked whether or not he and his friend Michael Mizrachi had pieces of one another or had swung any sort of deal leading into the final table. Racener said no, adding that the WSOP explicitly forbid the players from making deals at the final table, an admonition expressed to them in a meeting with the final nine before they left Vegas in July.

Speaking of Full Tilt, one of their “red pros” Phil Gordon also appeared on the show. And speaking again of the battles between online sites, one of the more interesting items Gordon brought up was his frustration over the fact that the FTP pros and members of Team PokerStars couldn’t compete against one another on televised shows like “The PokerStars.net Big Game” or the “Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship.”

In fact, when Gordon was asked which player he’d like most to team up with in a doubles tourney among those not already on the Full Tilt show, Gordon somewhat surprisingly answered Joe Cada, the 2009 WSOP ME champ and PokerStars pro. The issue was discussed further, and Gordon acknowledged that the marketplace was so competitive that his desire to see the sites no longer segregate themselves this way was perhaps not something that was likely to happen.

Can’t honestly report the fourth guest on yesterday’s show -- Victory Poker model Victoria Moore -- offered anything as intriguing as did the other guests. Besides being easy on the eyes, that is. Or the news of her being named this year’s “Official Wicked Chops Poker Girl.”

Like I say, another interesting and engaging episode of “This Week in Poker.” An archived version should appear over on the “This Week In” site soon. I’ll add a link here when it does.

(Here you go.)