First off, I apologize to any readers that were misled by the latest headline on the blog.  That was for my preview article predicting Eric Buchman to be champion, which did not turn out to be the case.

Behold Lady Luck

This Symbolizes Final Table Play

With a table of strongly skilled players (and a Maryland logger) at the final table, luck inevitably played a major role in determining the champion. It turns out that you wanted to enter heads-up showdowns with the lesser hand.

Champion Joe Cada won the two showdowns that propelled him to victory with his pocket deuces out-flopping Antoine Saout’s pocket kings and his pocket threes trumping Jeff Shulman’s pocket jacks.

Also, in a coin-flip showdown where Cada eliminated Saout he hit a king on the river for his A-K to best Saout’s pocket eights.

Darvin Moon’s roller coaster ride featured knocking out Phil Ivey with A-Q when Ivey held A-K and making Steve Begleiter go begging with A-Q against Begs’s pocket queens.

On the flip side, the steady Kevin Schaffel was on a major role during the second level of play when his pocket aces were trumped by Eric Buchman’s pocket kings (Buchman hit a king on the flop and turned quad kings for the final knockout blow).

All in all, these crazy showdowns led to a Darvin Moon-Joe Cada heads-up final that few would have (or should have) predicted. As Andrew Feldman from ESPN poker stated, “I’m trying to compare the luck factor between Darvin Moon and Cada, and honestly, it’s pretty comparable.”

Regrettable Plays

Mistake After Mistake at the Final Table

Darvin Moon’s entire final table could be classified as a bad play and his luck finally ran out in heads up after he wagered his entire stack on Q-J suited.

An early Moon misstep against Saout gave the dangerous French player the chips he needed to make a deep run (Saout ended up finishing third and as I outlined earlier was unlucky to be knocked out there).

Moon later bluffed off a big part of his stack to Steve Begleiter, which Begs promptly gave to Saout on a middle pair he overplayed.

This did not receive a ton of attention during live coverage but Phil Ivey put himself into a major hole that he never recovered from when he doubled up Joe Cada.

Ivey called off about 4 million chips (a fourth of his stack) with just A-8 off-suit and Cada’s pocket fours held up during the showdown that took Cada’s chances off of life support (at one point Cada was down to just five big blinds after losing a showdown to Jeff Shulman and only had about 5 million chips before winning this pot).

Finally, Eric Buchman lost most of his stack overplaying A-Q off-suit four handed. While four betting with that hand in his spot is not an awful play in theory it was one that I believed to be terribly unnecessary given that Cada and Moon were busy throwing chips around and Saout (his opponent in the hand, who happened to be holding A-K) was the one player left I would have advised him to avoid when possible.

Unpredictability

Life (and Poker) is Unpredictable

While Moon proved to be the mediocre (being kind) amateur player that his profile suggested and Cada threw chips around extremely loosely as I figured could happen, they still managed to be the last players left standing.

If the final table was a best of seven type of event Cada and Moon would probably prove to be seventh and ninth best players there respectively (with Begs in between). However, in a one-time setting they managed to have the fortune to play heads-up for the title with Cada taking home the ultimate prize.

Unfortunately the axiom of tight players not winning tournaments will prove to be true when guys throw around chips so hastily and so much is reliant upon showdown hands.

Jeff Shulman played a steady, intelligent game at the final table and in the end finished in fifth place after losing one big hand to Cada and then a coin flip to Saout (when he was basically down to the felt).

Though Ivey likely regrets getting into the showdown with Cada he still wisely managed his short stack throughout the event and was only eliminated when Moon got lucky against him.

Finally, Saout made all of the right plays throughout the night and deserved to be playing heads-up against Moon with a 34 million chip lead (about a 60-40 edge). Instead, Cada got lucky in an aforementioned showdown and then won the re-match coin flip to knock him out.

In future years I hope that the main event final table has the same level of strong players and that the Darvin Moon’s and Joe Cada’s of the world get the fate their play deserves.