Juanda wins 22-hour final table at WSOPE!

<img src="http://www.liquidpoker.net/staff/Pindarots/Oktober08/johnjuanda.jpg" align="right" style="margin:5px; border:1px solid black;">An interesting line-up for the World Series of Poker Europe Final Table would surely make an interesting final table, right? Well, sort of. A new record, another player winning a bracelet in both the Vegas and the European-version of the WSOP and we'll get a tiny preview of what to expect next month in the WSOP Main Event final table and a diverse table containing both the famous and experienced pros as the inexperienced first-timers. It all started with the following 9 players:

Seat 1: Robin Keston - 849,000
Seat 2: Daniel Negreanu - 1,002,000
Seat 3: Chris Elliott - 281,000
Seat 4: Bengt Sonnert - 385,000
Seat 5: John Juanda - 1,349,000
Seat 6: Ivan Demidov - 1,006,000
Seat 7: Toni Hiltunen - 386,000
Seat 8: Scott Fischman - 732,000
Seat 9: Stanislav Alekhin - 1,278,000

At first, it all seemed pretty normal, everything was going as planned, and shortstacks Chris Elliot and Toni Hiltunen got knocked out to dominated hands (higher flush and JJ lost to QQ). Not much later, Robin Keston gets knocked out with A8 vs 99. Also Scott Fischman had to leave after he got all-in with AQs on a board. His opponent (Stanislav Alekhin) however held . At that time, we had 3 and a half hour played, and 4 players knocked out, nothing exceptional, right? The next knockout was just a mere indication of what we could expect. After 6 hours of mostly preflop play and very few showdowns (less than 10% of the hands gets to a showdown) we finally get to see another player busted out. Unfortunately for a large part of the crowd, it was Daniel Negreanu calls Stanislav Alekhin all-in with A9o. Alekhin has pocket jacks and his hand holds, knocking out "Kid Poker" in 5th place.Alekhin also knocked out Bengt Sonnert not much later with A8o vs A5o.

After knocking out those t<A name="cutnews"></A>wo players, Alekhin had a large chiplead 3-way. With 4.2mln chips he was way ahead of the 1.6mln of Juanda and the 1.4mln of Ivan Demidov. This doesn't last long tho, eventually John Juanda regains the chiplead and a lot of raising and reraising follows. Especially the two Russian players seem to be playing aggressive and fearless. Like when Demidov raises from the button, Juanda reraises to 250k. Demidov reraises to 650k and Juanda lays it down after some thinking. Demidov shows his T7o and the crowd goes wild. Unfortunately for Demidov, he is not to win both the European and the Vegas WSOP Main Events (yet?). After 14 and a half hours at the final table, he gets all-in on the turn on a -board with . Juanda has called him with . None of his outs come on the river and Ivan Demidov is out in third place. We'll see him back next month and after this final table, he is now one of the favorites to win it!

An epic heads-up battle follows, with double ups by both players, but mostly just grinding chips away from the other. One of the most tiring battles in the history of poker has been played yesterday, last night and even this morning. While most of the crowd already went to bed or fallen asleep on their chairs, John Juanda and Stanislav Alekhin are still playing. Again, we dont get to see many showdowns, most of the times it's just blinds-stealing and other small pots. After a grueling 22 hours, we finally get to the end of it. When Juanda raises 165k on the button, Alekhin calls. On the flop, Alekhin bets 325k, Juanda checks his cards and moves all-in to have Alekhin insta-call his shove. Juanda shows for top pair and Alekhin's needs one club card to win the title. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't meant to be and Juanda doubles up to 6.6mln chips. Alekhin is down to 600k and a few hands later, he's all-in. With his he's well ahead of Juanda's , but two sixes on the flop and one on the river makes quads for John Juanda and he wins his 4th WSOP bracelet! All praises go out to Stanislav Alekhin and Ivan Demidov, who didn't want to give in easy. Thus making this final table lasting 22 hours and 484 hands!

Final results:

1. John Juanda £868,800
2. Stanislav Alekhin £533,950
3. Ivan Demidov £344,850
4. Bengt Sonnert £271,500
5. Daniel Negreanu £217,200
6. Scott Fischman £171,950
7. Robin Keston £135,750
8. Toni Hiltunen £108,600
9. Chris Elliott £81,450

22h is kinda insane

too bad soul lost =[

I wonder how much of the crowd was still there after 22hours

They should have increased the blinds faster after 10h ...

In the end the blind-level was 40k/80k (10k ante) with an average stack of 3.62 million. That still makes 45 big blinds. The final level would have been 60k/120k with 15k ante. I agree they should have been at a higher blind level much earlier, although some tournaments seem to overdo this which harms the poker, but nonetheless, playing 22 hours like this isn't any good either.

wow 22hrs? That's insane...

Congrats to John Juanda!

On October 03 2008 06:06 Liquid`Meat wrote: I wonder how much of the crowd was still there after 22hours

Bah ! Who cares about crowd, what was gong on in the press room must have been GOD DAMN FUNNY :D

At EPT Dortmund(?) Or Copenhagen last year, when the heads-up lasted over 5 hours press was sleeping in the poker room and no1 was watching ;p
At EPT Warsaw this year ( season 4 ) the heads up was so boring we ( press ) were laughing we should all agree on one version and air it on the internet. Guys from Italy were playing poker using shrimps instead of chips, since there was no food left for press :D

haha sounds fun Defrag. ur bunny is awesome btw

On October 03 2008 08:50 Yugless wrote: haha sounds fun Defrag. ur bunny is awesome btw

TY Sir ;D

**Cough** ma'am **Cough Cough**

juanda moving up on the all time winnings list.