Home / Poker News June 2009 / Michael Davis strikes gold in the $1,000 Seniors World Championship event
Michael Davis strikes gold in the $1,000 Seniors World Championship event
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2009-06-27 14:35
Picking your spots and going with the flow can lead to tournament success. Michael Davis, the winner of the $1,000 Seniors World Championship event is living proof to that. Davis didn’t dominate the tables where he played, yet he managed to survive 2,706 players on his way to WSOP glory and to a fat $437,358 payday.
Only 28 of the 2,706 initial starters returned to action on the final day of the event. The entire final day would only last for 9 hours, and that included the final table which only took 3 hours to yield a winner.
Davis had started the day rather low on chips as did Chuck McCormick, who became the first victim of the day.
Tom Thomas and Charles Simon, the two players who began the day at the top of the provisional chip leader board, spared no effort when it came to trying to eliminate each-other. Paying no heed to the general tournament wisdom that large stacks should avoid confrontation amongst them, Thomas and Simon duked it out hand after hand, until Simon landed a crippling blow which made him the absolute chip leader and which degraded Thomas’s status to that of a short-stack.
Thomas did hold on for another hour, but eventually decided to risk his tourney life on a K,4o and pushed all in on a flop of A,K,3. Simon, his arch nemesis, was there though and called him with K,J for the better kicker. The turn and the river turned their backs on Thomas who was thus eliminated in 12th place.
Mitch Garshofsky was the bubble boy. He was eliminated in 10th place by Art Duncan, whose A,Q went on to make two pairs on turn and the river.
Robert Beck was the first player bounced from the final table. He was soon followed by Richard McCall (8th place) and only 5 minutes later by Art Duncan in 7th. Dan DeLatorre was in deep trouble when his preflop all-in (on Qs,4s) got called by Michael Morusty’s K,K. it would’ve taken a miracle for him to survive this hand and miracles weren’t in the book this day.
Charles Simon was eliminated by Scott Buller next, in a classic A,K vs A,Q confrontation, in which Buller’s A,K caught a K on the turn to make matters clear.
Only 5 minutes later, Michael Morusty’s pocket rockets got cracked by Buller’s Ac,Kh on an all club board.
Barry Bounds fell in 3rd place about 10 minutes later, to set the heads-up stage between Davis and Buller.
Davis managed to clinch the chip advantage on the very first hand and never gave Buller any breathing room from there on. The final hand featured Buller’s A,J going up against Davis’ A,9, on a board which gave Davis a pair of 9s for the win.
