Heads-up matches have always been my favorite type of poker. It's a one on one match where the mental aspect of the game gets an even bigger importance. For that reason the $10,000 heads-up event is one of the things I look forward the most in the World Series of Poker. That, and the fact that one LPer, Rekrul, has a story of success in the event makes things very interesting for me.

Well, talking about the tournament now.. Rekrul, Mig, Elky, Ket and Raszi played the event. Unfortunately all of them, except for Raszi, were eliminated in the first round. Raszi didn't go much further than that though. He was eliminated in the 2nd round in a match he had some opportunities to win. You can read more about some of these sad stories in this topic. Some of the top guys who made it to the money are Jovial Gent (Timoshenko), Alec Torelli, Neverwin (Dustin Woolf) and poker legend Johnny Chan (former Main Event winner). Chan was actually aiming to tie Phil Hellmuth's record of 11 WSOP bracelets. Too bad he was prevented from doing so, it would be really great to see that happening.

The finalists of the event were Leo Wolpert and John Duthie. The final actually happened in a previously unscheduled fourth day. It was supposed to happen on day 3, but due to some long matches that day officials decided to make it on a fourth day. Reports say the final was pretty much a marathon. First and third matches were sooo long. The third one actually lasted for aroudn 4h30 (191 hands!), which is sick long for a heads-up match. Altogether, the final lasted for about 7h30. In the final hand, Wolpert had 35ss and flopped two pairs, enough to make him the winner of the 2009 WSOP Heads-Up Championship! He earned $625,682 and a brand new gold bracelet!


J.C. Tran

J. C. Tran captured his second WSOP bracelet in the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha event! Things didn't look easy for him at first, as he started the day holding just the fourth stack of the table. But Tran steadily worked his way up and became the dominant force in the table. He was the responsible for crushing the dreams of Theo Jorgenssen, Chad Layne, Ross Boatman and Jean-Philipp Leandri, 8th, 7h, 4th and 3rd places respectively. Tran entered the heads-up holding a 2-to-1 chip advantage over Jeff Kimber, who has 5 WSOP cashes in his tournament record. Being more experienced, and honestly, the better player, Tran didn't have any troubles with Kimber. He just dominated Kimber from the start of the HU and won the tournament with a fullhouse in the last hand. First place prize was $235,685

Tran: just as happy as Ivey