Home / Poker News November 2011 / Pius Heinz Wins 2011 WSOP Main Event
Pius Heinz Wins 2011 WSOP Main Event
Posted by: Jo Martin - Wed, 2011-11-09 06:54
Poker fans, it’s official: Pius Heinz is the 2011 WSOP Main Event Champion, the proud owner of a bracelet and $8.72 million richer.
On Tuesday, 3 players returned to the Penn and Teller Theatre to finally play down to a winner. After months of waiting and after the interruption of the hostilities on Sunday, the poker world has finally found out who the champion of the champions would be for the next 12 months.
Heinz faced formidable opposition even over the final dash at the end of the tournament in Ben Lamb and Martin Staszko, but the fact that he had a massive chip lead going into the day proved decisive. He carried 107,800,000 chips into battle against Lamb’s 55,400,000 and Staszko’s 42,700,000.
When the stakes are this high, every single hand counts, and the railbirds who flooded the venue were surprised to find that the two short-stacks weren’t going to finesse their way around at all. Lamb and Staszko were all-in before the flop, with Heinz safely out of the way – way to
play Holdem boys. Lamb had K,Jo against Staszko’s pocket 7s. The hand left Lamb’s stack in shambles. Down to 12.7 million chips, he ceased to be a factor at the table.
The second hand wasn’t any less significant either. Staszko locked horns with Heinz this time, and the two of them stuffed the pot all the way to the river. Staszko’s pocket Ks held and he took the chip lead.
On the 4th hand of play, Lamb’s last few chips were in the middle again. He had a Q,6o and Staszko made the call with pocket Js. The board ran out a bunch of blanks and Lamb was out. He picked up a little over $4 million for his efforts.
Lamb’s elimination gave Staszko the lead, but after only 5 hands of heads-up play, Heinz grabbed it right back. There was a lot of back and forth, and after several lead changes and a truly titanic battle, the first all-in of the heads-up stage came about. The chips went into the middle on a flop of 10c,7c,Ks, with Staszko holding a Qc, 9c for the 4-card flush against Heinz’s Ah, Qh. Heinz only had an A-high, but the 3h on the turn was a great card for him. The 6s on the river sealed the deal and Staszko was pushed to the edge of elimination.
It only took a few more hands for the final showdown to come about. Staszko shoved all-in with a 7c, 10c and Heinz made the instant call with As,Kc. The board was all blanks and the champion was crowned.
