After an unprecedented 117 day recess, Peter Eastgate last night became the 2008 World Series of Poker champion as he defeated Ivan Demidov in the event’s first ever all European heads up encounter.“I do not think I have realised yet what a big moment this is,” commented Eastgate in the aftermath. “It will come in the next days and weeks. I expect I will get emotional about it later, but not as much now.”
Contrary to popular belief, all nine finalists made the final unscathed with 53-year old truck salesman Dennis Phillips boasting the chip lead. Heading into the final, the chip counts for an aptly named ‘November Nine’ were as follows.
Seat 1: Dennis Phillips -- 26,295,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis - 10,210,000
Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz -- 12,525,000
Seat 4: Scott Montgomery- - 19,690,000
Seat 5: Darus Suharto -- 12,520,000
Seat 6: David 'Chino' Rheem -- 10,230,000
Seat 7: Ivan Demidov -- 24,400,000
Seat 8: Kelly Kim -- 2,620,000
Seat 9: Peter Eastgate -- 18,375,000
Although Kelly Kim was the shortest stack, it was 23-year old online pro Craig Marquis who fell first. All in with pocket sevens, the young American found his coin buttered the wrong side as Scott Montgomery’s (right) A-Q caught a second bullet on the flop.Soon after, Kelly Kim was indeed eliminated. A 31-year old professional poker player from California with over $326,000 in career tournament winnings, Kim was shot down by the combined efforts of Ivan Demidov and Darus Suharto, the latter taking the scalp with T-9 on a 9-6-2-Q-A board. Kim mucked.
Out in seventh was one of the pre-final favourites in David ‘Chico’ Rheem. As the player with the most live tournament experience, Rheem was hotly tipped for success despite his inferior chip stack. However, those predictions were soon dashed as his A-K was cruelly out-drawn by Eastgate’s A-Q which flopped another queen on an otherwise raggy board.
With six players remaining, it was 39-year old accountant Darus Suharto who would be next to taste dust. One of few self-proclaimed amateurs at the table, Suharto performed admirably to take home just under $2.5 million for his efforts, but would be denied WSOP gold as he ran A-8 into the A-Q of Montgomery and saw no further improvement.
With Montgomery chasing Eastgate for the chip lead, nobody expected the 26-year old Canadian to become the fifth place finisher. But with his A-3 all in against Eastgate’s pocket sixes, the board came a dramatic A-Q-4-A-6 to send Montgomery home and supply his Danish assassin with a chip-lead threatening stack.
At this point, the chip counts were as follows:
Ivan Demidov (pictured below) -- 49,100,000
Peter Eastgate -- 47,625,000
Ylon Schwartz -- 22,175,000
Dennis Phillips -- 17,325,000
The final hand of the opening day saw Dennis Phillips forced to settle for third place. On a rainbow J-4-3 board, Phillips reraised all in with just T-9, but found himself drawing to running straight cards as Eastgate snap-called with pocket threes to give himself a 79.5 to 57.7 million lead heading into heads up play.
After a thoroughly deserved night’s sleep, in which it is doubtful that either player received a wink, Bruce Buffer commenced day two proceedings with his dulcet tones and we were away, Peter Eastgate looking to become the youngest ever WSOP main event champion at just 22-years of age.
The final hand came with Eastgate holding a commanding 120 to 16 million chip lead and blinds at 500,000/1,000,000. On a 2d-Ks-3d-4c-7s board, Demidov pushed all in with 4h-2h and Eastgate immediately called. The winning cards for 2008 were Ad-5s for the wheel.
With this win, Eastgate, who plays $200/400 Hold’em ring games on PokerStars.com, becomes the first ever Danish player to win the main event, and the first non-American since Joe Hachem in 2005. His first prize winnings of $9,152,416 is the second biggest payout in the history of the game, former champion Jamie Gold the only player to have won more in a single event when he took down $12,000,000 two years prior.
“Peter is the kind of player who is not afraid to put you under the gun,” said Team PokerStars Pro Noah Boeken. “I’m impressed by the way he played this tournament. He is a great testament to the young, up-and-coming European players in the poker field.”
Having fended off 6,843 other poker fanatics over a total of 80.9 hours at the felt, Peter Eastgate is considered to be a worthy champion and one who will wear his title with honour and dignity. Held in equally high esteem is runner up Ivan Demidov. “Ivan’s game has really impressed me this year,” said poker legend Daniel Negreanu. “I played with him on at WSOPE final table and he has shown that he knows deep stack poker and can run with the best.”
Having finished third in the recent World Series of Poker Europe at London’s Empire Casino, Demidov is the only player to have finalled main events either side of the Atlantic. If his performances in these two outings are anything to go by, then Moscow’s most successful export should be making plenty more final tables come 2009.
Although the decision to delay the conclusion of this year’s World Series was an inevitably controversial one that split opinions down the middle, there is no doubt that this year’s event was just as successful, if not more so than last year. With bigger numbers, larger prize pools and more nationalities participating, the Series improved on multiple fronts and, if poker remains rife, should continue its success for a few more years to come. The question on most people lips, however, will be whether or not we’ll witness another recess in play. Tune in next year to find out.
1st Peter Eastgate -- $9,152,416
2nd Ivan Demidov -- $5,809,595
3rd Dennis Phillips -- $4,517,773
4th Ylon Schwartz -- $3,774,974
5th Scott Montgomery -- $3,096,768
6th Darus Suharto -- $2,418,562
7th David ‘Chino’ Rheem -- $1,772,650
8th Kelly Kim -- $1,288,217
9th Craig Marquis -- $900,670
images (except for Montgomery) courtesy of worldseriesofpoker.com