It seems like there’s even more attention on the World Series of Poker this year than usual. With online poker on life support in the United States, many have looked at the WSOP as a gauge of the overall health of poker itself.
If WSOP 2011’s Event 18 is any indication, it appears that poker is as popular as ever. Attracting the largest Day 1 field of all time, 3,157 players put up $1,500 a piece to play the No Limit Hold’em event. This created a massive $4,261,950 prize with $735,400 for first place.
Only 34 players made Day 3. The remaining field was filled with relative unknowns for the most part. One of the exceptions was Jordan “Jymaster11” Young. Young, an American online pro, is known for his super aggressive style, and there was no doubt he would be using this to his advantage in pursuit of his first bracelet.
As the day wore on, another American online pro also began to amass a stack: Tristan “Crea8ive” Wade shot to the top of the standings alongside Young. When there were 18 left, Wade was in 2nd place and Young was in 3rd. Both looked poised to make a very serious run at the bracelet.
En route to the final table, however, the two tangled in a pot that saw Wade take a sizable chunk out of Young’s chip stack. This meant that Wade saw himself in 3rd place with 2,360,000 in chips when the final table started, which was not too far from the chip lead. Young was the short stack with 800,000 chips, and so there was nowhere to go but up for him.
Stacks shifted up and down amongst the remaining nine until about 2 hours in when Young and Wade tangled yet again. Young was unlucky enough to run his AK into Wade’s AA and while he had 12 outs going to the river, he was unable to suck out. This left him with a mere 1bb stack.
Not to be left for dead, Young would throw his pittance in and watch it keep coming back. Just one hour later he was back up to 1,475,000! And then less than 30 minutes later he was up to 2,025,000 which was just short of the chip lead. Talk about an amazing comeback.
The Young roller coaster took a sharp downward turn without warning, though. In no time he found himself back down to under a million. He got in the last of his chips with K6 versus A3 and couldn’t connect, which meant busting in 9th place after all.
Wade busted not too long afterward, running A9 into AA. He was eliminated in 7th place for $94,700.
At this point Day 3 was over. The remaining 6 players left for the evening and here were the stacks:
1 – Foster Hays – 3,620,000
2 – Casey Kelton – 3,385,000
3 – Jeffrey Lavelle – 2,135,000
4 – Robert Koss – 2,015,000
5 – Stanley Tavanese – 1,735,000
6 – Allan Le – 1,315,000
When play started again the next morning, blinds were high and stacks were very shallow. It isn’t surprising that the eliminations came quickly. Both Hays and Kelton increased their chip count by busting players just 8 minutes apart from one another near the start of Day 4.
It was at this point that Hays began to speed away. Seemingly there was never a point where he wasn’t putting chips into the pot and coming out on the right side of a big one. Whether it was making pairs or getting dealt aces, he could do no wrong.
Hays eliminated two more players, which set up heads-up between himself and Kelton. He had a dominating chip lead, with 10,965,000 to Kelton’s 3,235,000.
Kelton wasn’t about to go down without a fight, however. He battled back by getting it in with A4 versus TT and smashing a miracle flop as 325 rolled out. Just 20 minutes later he would flop a set with QQ and double up, claiming the chip lead with 8,000,000 against the 6,200,000 of Hays.
It only took minutes for Hays to reclaim the chip lead, though, as he effectively flip flopped the chip stacks. Soon he was able to finish the day off as all the money went in on a 974 flop. Kelton had just AJ for the A hight, no draw. Hays was far ahead with J9 and managed to dodge the remaining three aces in the deck to collect the bracelet!
After winning, Hays was quick to complement Wade, Young, and everyone else at the final table. Congratulations to him for winning his first bracelet and to everyone else who cashed in the event! Please see below for final table payouts.
1 – Foster Hays – $735,400
2 – Casey Kelton – $454,920
3 – Jeffrey Lavelle – $321,947
4 – Allan Le – $233,043
5 – Stanley Tavanese – $170,648
6 – Robert Koss – $126,409
7 – Tristan Wade – $94,700
8 – Phillippe Vert – $71,728
9 – Jordan Young – $54,936