WSOPE: John Juanda Wins Record Finale

Published on 03 Oct 08 12:56 by Drakhor

John Juanda secured his fourth bracelet after a breath-taking WSOPE finale in London. In a record heads-up, he defeated the Russian Stanislav Alekhin.

22 hours and almost 500 hands did the finale of the Word Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) take in the Empire Casino, London – and thus broke every WSOP record. The previous record for a final table was at comparatively few 354 hands.

Everything within Scope up to Rank 3

Up to hand 242, everything still looked like a "normal" WSOP finale. At the same time, the final table was filled with a top-class field of stars like Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, Ivan Demidov or Scott Fischman.

Negreanu was busted in hand 138 when Stanislav Alekhin sent him to the rail. With , the Russian prevailed over Negreanu's . The board had no influence, and thus the pockets were sufficient.

Demidov of the November Nine finished third. After a pre-flop raise from Juanda, the flop came with . Check-call from Juanda and the on the turn. This time, Juanda check-raised the Russian all-in, who called. Juanda showed pocket rockets , while Demidov only had a draw. The on the river meant the end of the Double dreams.

7 Hours of Heads-up

However, all of this should be surpassed by the heads-up starting with hand 243, which only found its conclusion after seven hours of playing time – with hand number 484.

Juanda went into the finale of the last two with a chip lead of about 4.4M to 2.8M chips, and at first extended his lead even further until Alekhin set up a counter-attack and got just above 3 million chips. The game seemed to repeat itself and Juanda built up his stack once again, before Alekhin won several big pots and took over the lead himself with 4.6M chips.

After the Russian extended his stack to almost 7M chips, many already saw him as the winner of the tournament. However, Juanda fought himself back into the game. At first he doubled through with versus , only to do it one more time a bit later with against (Board:), and thus even out once again. After several further ups and downs, both were yet again evened out.

Juanda secures the Title

This changed when Juanda – on the board of – pushed all-in after a raise from Alekhin, and the Russian insta-called. Juanda held for the top pair. Alekhin was drawing to the flush with . However, turn and river didn't help the Russian, and he only remained with about 600,000 chips, while Juanda held over 6M once more.

Around 10:30 AM, a tired Stanislav Alekhin pushed all-in with . Juanda called with and needed help. He got it in the form of a flop of . The on the turn sealed the deal, which was even gilded for Juanda with the on the river.

WSOPE 2008 Main Event
Rank	Name	Prize money
1	John Juanda	£868,800
2	Stanislav Alekhin	£533,950
3	Ivan Demidov	£334,850
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