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October 25th 2006
WPT Festa al Lago: 23 year old Norwegian captures $1 million first prize
A 23 year old Norwegian pro has become the latest World Poker Tour winner after capturing the Festa al Lago title at the Bellagio, holding off five more experienced contenders at the final table to capture the $1,090,025.
The WPT Festa al Lago seemed to be Joe Pelton’s for the taking. With just 6 players remaining from the 433 who began the tournament, this stock market gambler had a massive chip lead. Add to that the confidence Pelton must have felt after his recent $1.5 million win at the WPT Legends of Poker not more than two months ago, and he was a firm favourite for the title. Within three hands almost all his chips were gone, along with his chances of victory.
Pelton’s first mistake came on the second hand of day, when he misread Steve Wong’s six-times-the-big-blind raise from the small blind as indicating a steal, and he moved all-in with ace nine of hearts. Wong had no hesitation in calling with his ace king and the board blanked out, doubling up Steve Wong and taking an $800,000 chunk out of Pelton’s chip lead.
On the very next hand things went from bad to worse. With a good ace in his hand Joe Pelton had no trouble calling a medium sizes pre-flop raise from Andreas Walnum and got lucky when the flop came Ad-Q-s-8d. Rather than betting out on the flop Pelton chose to check call Walnum’s $100,000 bet (he later wrote in his blog that he planned on taking the pot away from Walnum on the turn). The problem was that the turn card, the six of diamonds, gave Walnum three sixes, so when Pelton bet $250k Walnum had an easy call. The eight on the river gave Walnum a full house, and when Pelton bet $350k he moved all-in. At this point Pelton almost certainly should have folded but as he wrote in his blog, he put Walnum on pocket kings with the king of diamonds and elected to make the call; “oops,” his own words. The loss cut Pelton down to $800k, when just two hands previously he had held over $2.9 million. Walnum was our new chip leader.
While Walnum steadily collected chips Pelton was just at the beginning of a roller coaster ride than would make most people sick. His chip stack had shrunk down to $460k when he finally picked up a monster and doubled through Chris Loveland with AA v 99. Then a little while later Pelton doubled up again, this time with pocket queens, after Steve Wong pushed all-in on a semi-bluff with K-5 on a flop of 6-5-2.
That was the first of four consecutive hands in which Pelton doubled up or was doubled through. On the very next hand after his pocket queens propelled him to second in chips with $2.3 million, Pelton was back down the leaderboard again. This time he chose a bad time to bluff Steve Wong, pushing all-in on the K-6-3 flop with A-5 after Wong had hit top pair with A-K. That put Pelton back down to short stack again, and so on the very next hand he decided to gamble with fellow short stack David Baker. It was a pretty even battle with K-Q v A-5, but a queen on the flop and a king on the turn meant Pelton would fight on while Baker hit the rail.
Perhaps it was time for Pelton to slow down a bit and assess where he was? Not a chance. The very next hand he raised $150k with 4d-5d only for Chris Loveland to move all-in for a a further $410k. Whether he needed to make the call or not is debateable, but he did, and unsurprisingly he lost to Loveland’s K-8. Short stacked once more!
With a brief respite form the Pelton show, there was an opportunity for two other players to spend some time in the limelight. Chris Loveland, still relatively short stacked, even after his win over Pelton, decided to go to war with 7-7 and Walnum accepted the challenge. It was a classic race with A-K versus the medium pocket pair but the first card out of the deck was an ace, and it was all over for Loveland. He got $187,745 for fourth place.
Two hands later and Walnum put an end to Pelton’s ordeal, finally delivering a knockout blow by calling with top pair after Pelton moved all-in with a gutshot draw on the flop. The wins left Walnum with an intimidating $6.2 million to $2.6 million chip lead for his heads-up battle with Steve Wong, and it took him just two hands to finish the job (three eliminations in six hands – was there something good on TV that night?)
On the second hand Walnum raised to $175k preflop with pocket twos and Wong flat called with K-4. The K-J-2 flop was a disaster for Wong, giving him top while Walnum made a set of twos. Wong check called Walnum’s $200k bet on the flop, but led out with a $400k bet when the turn came a harmless looking eight, only for Walnum to put in a minimum re-raise to $800k.
At this point Wong should really have considered folding or moving all-in. Calling would not leave him enough chips to move Walnum off his hand on the river, and given Walnum’s mini-raise on the turn, the chance were than only a four or a king on the river could save him (there was in fact no card on the river that could help him).
Nevertheless that wasn’t what Wong chose to do, and having flat called Walnum’s raise there was now $2.4 million in the pot, so he was pretty much committed to calling any bet Walnum made on the river so long as it was not an ace. It was the five of diamonds, Walnum moved all-in, Wong called, and the tournament was over. The WPT Festa al Lago title belonged to Andreas Walnum from Norway. Wong picked up $542,700 for second place.
Below are the payouts for the final table players:
1st Andreas Walnum $1,090,025
2nd Steve Wong $542,700
3rd Joe Pelton $292,220
4th Christopher Loveland $187,745
5th David Baker $125,240
6th Can Kim Hua $83,490
Submitted: 25/10/2006 12:06:19
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