Home / Poker News June 2011 / 2011 WSOP – Kenneth Griffin wins $1,000 NL Holdem Event
2011 WSOP – Kenneth Griffin wins $1,000 NL Holdem Event
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2011-06-30 12:44
The third bracelet winner of day 29 of the
2011 WSOP was Kenneth Griffin. He was the only winner of the day who hadn’t initially been scheduled to pick up his bling on day 28.
21 players returned to the grind on day 3 of the $1,000 NL Holdem event. The fish-pool had whittled away relatively fast, and among those who remained in the books were “name” players too: Antonio Esfandiari was there on day 3 and so was Jean Luc Marais, who had the chip lead no less. Esfandiari had a healthy stack too: he was second in chips.
To say that things didn’t start well for the Magician would be an understatement. Within a couple of hands, he went from hopeful to the rail. He had 1.5 million chips when the action kicked off. First, he worked his stack down to 625k, when he ran into Eric Baudry’s pocket rockets which hit a set on the board. Kenneth Griffin fired out a bet from under the gun in the very next hand and Esfandiari figured he could get away with robbery from the hijack position with K,10o. Phillip Hammerling then shoved all-in holding A,K and the Magician was in dire trouble. The board brought a bunch a bricks and Hammerling’s Ace bounced Esfandiari from the tournament.
When the tournament came down to its heads-up stage, Griffin was facing Jean Luc Marais, the start of the day chip leader. By this stage though, the chip counts had gone through a lot, and it was Griffin who had advantage, his stack 5.5 million big. Marais’ 3.3 million chips offered him little shelter from the wanton aggression of his opponent.
Griffin had built his stack up to about 6.4 million chips when Marais decided to fight back. His K.6o didn’t exactly stand a chance against Griffin’s pocket rockets though. The board gave a bit of faint hope to Marais, but ultimately it helped neither hand involved and the tournament was over.
Griffin picked up $455k and a gold bracelet for his efforts.
