The Event -- (WSOP 2009 Event 20)
· The $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em championship attracted 633 entries. The total prize pool amounted to $864,045. The top 63 finishers collected prize money.
· The chip leader at the end of Day One was Jason Dewitt, from Mishawaka, IN. He ended up finishing third.
· The chip leader coming into the final table (end of Day Two) was John-Paul Kelly. He ended up winning the tournament.
· The final table lasted about five hours.
· Kelly held onto the final table chip lead from start to finish. The closest any player came to his stack size was two different occasions when Marc Tshirch and Jason Dewitt each came within a 3 to 2 margin of the lead. But neither was able to seize the lead away from Kelly.
· The final hand of the tournament came when Kelly’s aggressive semi-bluffing on early rounds led to a big payoff. Kelly was dealt A-Q and bet aggressively both pre- and post-flop, despite holding no pair. Tschirch had A-5 and called two big bets as the board showed 8-5-4. A queen on the turn turned the tables and allowed Kelly (suddenly holding top pair) to put his opponent his opponent all in with a big bet. Tschirch called and failed to improve, giving the victory.
JP Kelly in the blonde Hall of Fame: http://blondepoker.com/?q=node/448