When Phil Ivey said yesterday he would have to be unlucky not to triumph at today’s final table it might have seemed a touch arrogant, at least to those who don’t know just how good he is. Ultimately it proved more than a touch prophetic, just not in the way Ivey was hoping.
There is of course no telling whether Phil Ivey would have gone on to win the Mirage Poker Showdown if he hadn’t been outdrawn on the 55th hand of play, but when the person who many regard to be the world’s best poker player starts his sixth WPT final table with the chip lead and gets it all-in with the best hand for a chance to double up into a serious chip lead, well . . . . need I say more?
As it happened Ivey’s WPT final table curse (he has made six final tables but never won) continued unbroken today when he moved all-in with Qc-2c on a board showing 8c-8s-3c-Jc and was called by Jonathan Little holding A-8. An ace on the river cracked Ivey’s turned flush and sent him crashing to the rail in fifth place. He was right – it would take a spot of bad luck to stop him, but then again, that’s poker! His $129,684 prize will have been no consolation at all.
Still, while it was terrible for him, Ivey’s elimination was just the fillip the final table needed after a terrific start had been swallowed up by a sustained period of dour play. It all began in style with Amnon Filippi’s elimination on just the second hand of the day. He flopped the nuts with A-Q when the board came Kh-Jh-Tc but fell victim to Cory Carroll’s Ah-7h when a third heart hit on the river.
That start left the crowd in a state of high excitement but they were gradually worn down by the dearth of flops and showdowns that followed. Hand after hand went by taken down by a single preflop bet or the very occasional re-raise, and it was thus with some real relief that Ivey’s elimination brought some adrenalin to proceedings, even if it was a shame to see the great man go.
It’s always the same though isn’t it; you wait 54 hands for an elimination and then two come along at once! Well, almost; it was actually four hands until the next player hit the rail, but under the circumstances it seemed almost simultaneous. Richard Kirsch was the man out in fourth, moving all-in preflop with A-To but running straight into Little’s A-Jo. The board helped neither player and Kirsch was gone.
Now this was more like it! The action continued when a few hands later Darrell Dicken flopped the nut straight with A-Q and took down a one million dollar pot when Cory Carroll turned trip jacks. Then it was Carroll’s turn. He got in a preflop raising war with the chip leader, who rightly guessed that Carroll was weak but wrongly assumed he would lay down his hand to an all-in raise. Carroll called for his last $1.4 million chips with A-5o after Little had pushed all-in over the top of Carroll’s re-raise with Jh-8h. Amazingly the flop came A-5-5 rendering the next two cards obsolete; Carroll had doubled up to over $3 million.
That left Little in trouble, but soon after the break he doubled through first Dicken and then Carroll in the space of three hands to start an improbable comeback. Dicken meanwhile found himself on the end of a couple of cold decks, mostly at the hands of Cory Carroll, before he was finally eliminated in third place after missing an open end straight draw against Carroll’s top pair.
The heads-up battle began with both players evenly matched in the chip counts but Cory Carroll quickly took control of the match. He played with sustained aggression and forced Little to make three key laydowns in big pots that enabled him to open up a 2:1 chip lead. It looked as if the title was his for the taking.
Unfortunately for Carroll Lady Luck had other ideas, and she saved Little’s bacon before helping him on his way to the title. First off Little doubled through Carroll when his pocket fives held up in a coin flip against Carroll’s A-8. Then a few hands later he survived when all-in with A-6 against Carroll’s A-9, a high paired board resulting in a chopped pot. Then he ended the match with a monster suck out, catching trip twos when all-in preflop with A-2 against Carroll’s A-7.
It was a cruel blow for Carroll, whose performance in the heads-up stage alone should have landed him the title. Little won’t worry about that though. He is a WPT title holder.
The final standings are as follows:
1st – Jonathan Little - $1,066,295
2nd – Cory Carroll - $561,369
3rd – Darrell Dicken - $259,369
4th – Richard Kirsch - $172,912
5th – Phil Ivey - $129,684
6th – Amnon Filippi - $100,865