The growth of online players taking their domination into the live poker scene was further cemented when Kevin Saul, better known as "BeLOWaBOVe" online took down the $10,000 event at the Bellagio for a cool $1,342,320. Heads-up he bested high stakes pro and all-around entertainer Mike Matusow when Saul's Qs Qh held on a Th 6c 5c against an open-ended straight-flush draw belonging to 'The Mouth' who had 8c 7c but missed his two gazillion outs, instead having to make do with a $671,320 consolation prize and being handed his champagne glass second.
Sneakingly scheduled to begin after the original Day 1A's of the Main Event had begun, the Bellagio Cup III (Do Roman Numerals make things like this look cooler? I'm not sure) was set-up like a net around those who had fallen at the very first hurdle. With a respectable 535 runners spread, as lightly as butter, over four starting days combined to give this WPT event a $5million-plus prize pool and therefore the all-important headline-grabbing seven figure first prize. Despite this, a decision was made that 100 places would be paid, almost 20% of the field, which certainly seems err... flat. In an experiment, the tournament structure had been completely altered, perhaps by the criticism from the WPT Final earlier in the year where the amount of play when short-handed was pretty much deemed as laughable. This new structure may have been exactly what is needed though, because although he faced a 3:1 deficit in chips, Matusow still had around 30 big blinds at this point, a far cry from the shove every hand situations we'd been used to seeing before.
Although quite a few Brits played this event, none were in shouting distance of the final table, though Surinder Sunar, Jim Kerrigan and Joey Lovelady kept the flag flying, whilst BA Kildalen did his part for that special niche group known as the Norwegian Updating Crew, (it's very exclusive).
But in the end, none could match Kevin Saul and all were forced to watch from 'below' as he sat high 'above'.
I'll get my coat.