Home / Poker News May 2009 / Andrew Cohen wins WSOP Event #1 – the $500 Casino Employees special
Andrew Cohen wins WSOP Event #1 – the $500 Casino Employees special
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2009-05-30 00:08
The first WSOP bracelet of the 2009 Series has found a home. Andrew Cohen, a bartender in The Palms Casino took the title, together with the $83,778 prize.
Cohen bested an original starting field of 861, of which 81 players made it to Day 2.
Day 2 action began on the bubble, which meant that several of the survivors were dragging themselves along on flimsy stacks. That meant an eliminations-frenzy early in the day, when a player headed to the rail pretty much every minute.
As the situation settled a little and the final table drew closer, two of the previous day’s forerunners met their tournament demise. Cesar Chavez, the previous Day’s chip leader and Felix Karli were both eliminated just short of the final table.
John Williams took a nasty bad beat to exit before the final table was reached. He held pocket 10s and flopped a set (as the flop came down 10h, 9h, 7h) but was outdrawn by John McAvoy who had Ah, 10d, and hit the nut flush on the turn.
McAvoy became the chip leader with that move, but high variance hit him hard and he eventually finished in 7th place for $10,545.
Andrew Cohen held the chip lead for much of the day and he remained unfazed at the final table. He picked his spots patiently and methodically built his stack up till it was large enough to allow him to begin bullying people out.
He first got Jun Dulay all in on a J,J vs 8,8 match up to give his stack a huge thrust, then continued building it through Grant Yasui.
Cohen called a preflop raise with pocket 5s against Yasui and then found the inspiration to call his all-in on a flop of Q,6,6. Yasui showed A,9 and since no improvement came for him on the turn or the river, his stack migrated to Cohen’s side of the table to further cement the bartender’s position.
Casey Kuhn was eliminated in 3rd place by the same Cohen, who called Kuhn’s K,4 down on a flop of K,5,3 with 5,2s of all hands. The turn gave him a set for the win.
The final hand of the day saw Cohen go all in on his pocket 6s against Paul Petersen’s A,Qo. The board brought a bunch of bricks and the first bracelet of the 2009 WSOP was no longer up for grabs.
