Posted by Andrew Feldman
While the excitement around the Caesars Cup built up over the past few weeks, the matches didn't last that long. The format of the Caesars Cup featured two-doubles alternate-bet matches in which one player plays the hand preflop and on the turn while the other teammate plays the flop and river; two-doubles matches in which the teammates played the same stack and rotated every two hands; and finally, if necessary, heads-up matches. Team Europe, led by Annette Obrestad, defeated Captain Daniel Negreanu and Team Americas by a score of 4 to 1.
Courtesy of IMPDI 2009
The teams pose for a picture prior to play beginning in London.
In the first match, Huck Seed and Phil Ivey were ousted by Patrik Antonius and Ilari Sahamies. Negreanu and Hellmuth tried to turn it around, but unfortunately the Americas found themselves down 2-0 when their A-A ran into the A-3 of Bertrand Grospellier and the Betfair qualifier, John Harvey. Jennifer Harman and Doyle Brunson beat out Obrestad and Dario Minieri to cut the lead in half, but then back-to-back victories by Gus Hansen and Peter Eastgate (over Barry Greenstein and John Juanda) and Obrestad (over Seed) sealed the deal. The event is scheduled to air early in 2010.
As for the events that award bracelets at WSOPE, it was J.P. Kelly who earned his second bracelet of the year in WSOPE Event 1, the £1,000 no-limit hold 'em event. The field of 608 players set a record at the WSOP, and Kelly became the first British player to win a bracelet in London.
While the field may not have been as large as in Event 1, the talent in the £2,500 Event 2 compensated for that fact. Erik Cajelais outlasted the field of 158 players to win his first bracelet in the split pot-limit hold 'em/pot-limit Omaha event, which, hopefully, relieved him of the memory of being the runner-up in a $5,000 event at the 2007 WSOP. Cajelais' journey to the bracelet wasn't easy, as he needed to beat out a final table that included Men Nguyen (who finished fourth), Chris Bjorin (sixth), Howard Lederer (seventh) and Hoyt Corkins (ninth). Lederer made back-to-back final tables as he is one of five players left standing in Event 3, £5,000 pot-limit Omaha. This was his 25th WSOP final table and he hopes to add a third bracelet to his collection.
Courtesy IMPDI 2009.
On Friday Paul Zimbler became the world record holder by playing the longest continuous poker session.
The last note out of Europe is perhaps the coolest one. Paul Zimbler, a professional poker player from England, set the record for the longest recorded continuous poker session. Zimbler played poker for 74 hours, 20 minutes and 21 seconds! At the end of the session, Zimbler was exhausted and basically had to be carried away from the table, and you'll be able to see the final hand on next week's Inside Deal. Forgetting the accomplishment for a second, Zimbler's challengers donated money to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to play with the minimum donation of £10. More than £35,000 was raised in the attempt. Congrats to Paul on the accomplishment, and please, go get some rest.
Borgata Poker Open
Olivier Busquet claimed his first WPT title in the $3,300 World Poker Tour stop at the Borgata Poker Open. Busquet defeated a field of 1,018 players and managed to make an amazing heads-up comeback to earn the $925,514 first-place prize money.
"I'm a little bit overwhelmed by the whole thing," Busquet said to the World Poker Tour. "Making a WPT final table is every tournament poker player's goal. To actually win the tournament is unreal … I was down to $1.8 million out of $31 million. I hit a couple of lucky cards, I avoided some cards and I am just happy I won."
Busquet's heads-up miracle began when he entered play against Jeremy Brown down 20 to 1. Let that soak in: 20 to 1. The first double-up came when Busquet's J-7 beat Brown's Q-9. He then chipped away until he doubled up again by flopping a straight versus Brown's two pair, and with chips, the online heads-up pro (who came just short of winning the $25,000 heads-up event at the World Championship of Online Poker) began to take advantage. Of course, the fact that Brown bluffed away $7.6 million with Q-2 also helped Busquet's cause.
After coming into the final table with the chip lead, Busquet went on a roller-coaster ride and walked away with the title when his A-4 flopped trips to beat out Brown's open-ended straight flush draw. Other notable finishers in this event included Steve Brecher (10th), Chris Reslock (11th) and Kathy Liebert (29th).
Small blinds: Four more years! Well, for IMG Sports & Entertainment. Harrah's announced in a press release Friday that IMG would continue to "activate its global network to help guide the international expansion of the brand, including sponsorship, event management, licensing and television distribution." … Phil Hellmuth will be coaching Jeff Shulman in preparation for the WSOP main event final table. … Darvin Moon will be on next week's ESPN Inside Deal. … Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho make their "Amazing Race" debut this weekend. … More Hellmuth: Let's just say the 11-time bracelet winner isn't happy with everything going on at Harrah's and the changes to take place in the future. On the Hardcore Poker Show, he said, "You know, there's going to be some mistakes made by Harrah's, and just mark my words -- they're going to risk losing the World Series of Poker, which is estimated at $200 million." … Joe Sebok's signing with PokerRoad hasn't made many people happy. He spoke about his decision on both ESPN Inside Deal and the Poker Edge podcast. … For some reason LeBron James is shown for five seconds playing at PokerStars. The rest of the music video has nothing to do with it. At all. Product placement at its best!
Poker
