Home / Poker News June 2009 / Brian Lemke wins $5,000 NL Holdem event
Brian Lemke wins $5,000 NL Holdem event
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2009-06-11 06:20
Day 2 of the $5,000 NL Holdem event (event #15 of the 2009 WSOP) was called at 3 am, so the final table was not reached. 17 players remained for day 3 and they all bellied up to the tables hopeful that the $692,658 first prize would end up in their possession.
That privilege would befall Brian Lemke, the player who found some additional motivation in honoring his cousin, the late PokerRoad Radio producer, Justin Shronk.
Day 3 saw two players eliminated within an hour of the start of the session. Tom Braband and Nicholas Grippo fell victims, taking home a little over $27k each.
Lars Bonding shoved all-in next, on his A,10o and got called by Brian Lemke with pocket Qs. No help came from the board for Bonding and he was eliminated in 15th.
David Benefield had started off as the shortstack and had managed to double up at the expense of David Inselberg. Unfortunately for him though, he’d end up giving all those chips back to Inselberg, plus some more, as he got eliminated on an A,J vs A,Q matchup.
Matthias Neu finished 13th, followed to the rail by Oliver Busquet in 12th place and by David Inselberg in 11th.
The final table was thus set and the remaining action in the tournament would be streamed live by ESPN’s broadband service.
The start of the 10-player final table featured tight action. Flops were seldom seen as hand after hand was decided by preflop action.
When the eliminations started though, they started with a bang. Isaac Baron managed to eliminate David Pham and Christian Iacobellis in a single swipe.
Billy Kopp got crippled by Brian Lemke but he fought back valiantly and managed to double up several times. Eventually though, the pressure became too much and he succumbed to Thomas Keller, having run his A,8o into Keller’s A,Ko.
Liya Gerasimova finshed in 5th, eliminated by Mike Sowers, who headed to the rail himself a few hands later, courtesy of Fabian Quoss.
The heads-up stage was set when Keller ran his Q,J into Quoss’ pocket rockets. Quoss proceeded to hit a straight on the river to add insult to injury and to eliminate Thomas Keller in 3rd.
Thanks to Keller’s elimination, Quoss was able to start the heads up action with a huge chip advantage over Lemke. It took Lemke around two hours to finally tip the scales in his favor. A few hands later he struck a decisive blow against Quoss and the end was a mere formality from there. The final hand of the event saw Lemke’s A,8 go up against Quoss’ A,Q. Lemke then proceeded to make a Q-high straight on the turn to win his first ever WSOP bracelet.
