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January 29th 2007
WPT Tunica – Negreanu just misses out on third WPT title
All the buzz around the World Poker Open in Tunica last weekend surrounded a certain high profile Canadian and his attempt to win a third WPT title.
No player has won more money, made more final tables, or had more consecutive cashes on the World Poker Tour than Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu. But the one category in which Negreanu is playing catch up is the “most WPT tournaments won” category, and a win here would have put him within touching distance of top spot.
Negreanu started the day in second position, with enough chips to make him a favourite for the title. But with 93 hands before the first elimination thoughts quickly turned from the future winner to the here and now. It was the longest time in a WPT final table without an elimination since the tour began, though it could have been very different.
“Kido” Pham was the first player all-in, but he survived after Gary Kainer called with a lower flush draw than Kido and missed his outs on the river. Next the roles were reversed – Kainer pushed with Ac-Qc and was inadvertently called by Kido Pham with Kh-7h, who claimed he had not meant to say call. There was an ace on the flop but also two hearts to give Kido hope, but the turn and river blanked and Kainer survived.
It was then Negreanu’s turn to get lucky when he found himself a massive dog with A-Q against Kainer’s A-K. It looked all over for Kid Poker but an A-Q-6 flop meant yet another victory had been snatched from the jaws of defeat.
Finally, after 93 hands and four hours and forty minutes of poker, we saw an elimination. Young Cho raised to $230k from the cutoff, and J.C. Tran called from the big blind. The flop came T-7-3 and J.C. Tran moved all-in for $270k. Cho called showing 9-7 and Tran was behind with K-J. A king on the turn sent Tran jumping from his seat, but the joy was short-lived; a nine on the river gave Cho two pair and sent Tran to the rail in sixth place.
With the first player out the action increased dramatically. Negreanu managed to manoeuvre his short stack back to over $1 million and then doubled through Kainer to take the chip lead. Two hands later Kainer doubled through Pham and then six hands after that Pham was sent to the rail when he called Bryan Sumner’s all-in with 8-6o. Sumner didn’t have much, but his J-9 was enough to collect the pot.
The very next hand Gary Kainer was eliminated. He made a bold moved with A-2 but ran into Bryan Sumner with pocket nines; it proved the end of the road for Kainer, and put Sumner in contention for the title.
With three players left Negreanu still led the way with $2.2 million, but neither Cho nor Kainer were more than $450k behind when three way play began. At this stage Cho took charge, playing an extremely aggressive game and moving all-in three times in three hands to win the first three pots.
But his aggressive style proved his undoing, for on the fourth time he moved all-in he was immediately called by Bryan Sumner who had picked up pocket aces. Cho sheepishly turned over 6-3o, and was eliminated in third place.
That elimination meant Sumner started the heads-up battle with a massive chip lead over Negreanu, with $4.375 million to $1.5 million and in the end it proved decisive. Negreanu was forced to make some bold moves but after moving all-in with A-2 he was called by Sumner with 8-8. The board came 8-5-4-3-Q and Sumner was the WPT World Poker Open champion. Negreanu collected $502,691 for second place, taking his tournament earnings to a staggering $9,191,792.
The final table payouts were as follows:
Bryan Sumner - $913,986
Daniel Negreanu - $502,691
Young Cho - $257,058
Gary Kainer - $199,934
Kido Pham - $171,372
J.C. Tran - $142,810
Submitted: 29/01/2007 11:17:45
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