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WSOP November Nine – heads-up stage reached
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2009-11-09 08:21
The WSOP November Nine showdown is in full swing and it’s clear now: with Ivey and the rest if the gang out of the way, it will be up to Darwin Moon and Joe Cada to determine who takes home the goods this year.
It took almost 15 hours for the November Nine members to play down to the last two men standing, and along the way, there were quite a few major heartbreaks in store.
The traditional “shuffle up and deal” opener was performed by reigning champion Peter Eastgate and poker legend Doyle Brunson. There was no shortage of railbirds either. People were lining up outside the Penn and Teller Theater as early as 6 o’clock.
For the first few hours of the
WSOP final table, the protagonists “circled” each other, looking for key weaknesses in the opposition’s defense. The early stages were quite eventless but soon, the action got rolling. James Akenhead was the first one to hit the rail. Having survived his first do or die shove, the short-stack looked well on his way to joining the ranks of the contenders. He was stopped dead in his tracks though, when Kevin Schaffel’s pocket rockets made short work of his pocket Ks. That blow pretty much cost him his entire stack, and Jeff Schulman’s pocket nines performed a mere formality when they saw Akenhead’s pocket 3s to the rail a few hands later.
Kevin Schaffel, in possession of nearly all of Akenhead’s chips, looked to give his stack a real boost when he shoved in on a pair of rockets again. He got called by Eric Buchman, who had K,K. The Q,J,K on the flop gave the lead to Buchman, and the K on the turn sealed the deal: Schaffel was out in 8th.
Full Tilt Poker Pro Phil Ivey hadn’t really managed to get anything going all day and eventually showed all in on an A,K vs Darwin Moon’s A,Q. Moon caught a Q on the flop and he held on to the advantage through the turn and the river to eliminate Ivey in 7th.
Once he got the betting public’s favorite out of the way, Moon decided not to stop there, and sent Steve Begleiter to the rail in 6th place. Begleiter’s pocket Qs were ahead of Moon’s A,Q but an A landed on the river and Begleiter was out of the picture too.
The game slowed down for a while following Begleiter’s demise, and during this slower period, Jeff Shulman bled some chips away to become the new short-stack. He eventually pushed all in, holding pocket 7s and got called by Antoine Saout with A,9. Saout proceeded to hit a pair of 9s on the flop and the deal was done. Shulman headed to the rail in 5th.
With the field whittled down to 4, Moon swung into action. He cornered Buchman first and his Kd, Jd proceeded to hit a K on the turn to beat Buchman’s A,5o.
Following a short break, the three battle-weary survivors began to grow impatient and began to force the action. Cada first dealt Saout a blow by making a set with his pocket 2s against the Frenchman’s pocket Qs. He then moved in for the kill and got Saout all in with pocket 8s against his A,K. A K on the river sent Saout packing though and set up the heads-up stage.
The action will take a nearly day-long break before play resumes with the Moon vs Cada bout. Cada starts as the favorite with a 136,925,000 stack against Moon’s 58,875,000.
