Barry Shulman, father of November WSOP Main event finalist Jeff Shulman, beat Daniel Negreanu heads-up over five hours play to win the WSOP-E Main Event, £801,603 prize money and his third WSOP bracelet.
Negreanu had started the final as the shortest stack but over the course of play eliminated all bar one of the players on the way to finishing second.
James Akenhead was eliminated in ninth. After pushing all in against Chris Bjorin's pre-flop raise, with A-Q, he saw Negreanu re-push behind him with K-K. Kings held to propel Negreanu to third in chips.
Shulman then eliminated Matt Hawrilenko in eighth place before Negreanu took over. He eliminated the next five players to steadily climb the chip counts and get heads-up with Shulman. In order he knocked out Antoine Saout, Bjorin, Ristola, Mercier and Praz Banzi who finished an excellent third.
Negreanu held a 6m-4m chip advantage at the start of heads-up play. Over the course of five hours both players held the chip lead for an extended period of time. Twice Shulman was all-in for his tournament life and twice he managed to survive.
The real drama came very close to the end though, and was described on the Betfair live updates:
Our final two saw a 5
8
flop and Shulman bet 300,000. Negreanu responded by raising to 900,000. And Shulman responded to that by moving all in.
Negreanu turned to the rail in the hope that they might help him with his decision. “So you all wanna go home, right?” he asked them. “I’m not saying I’m gonna lose…”
“Ah, I shouldn’t listen to the rail. I call.”
On their backs.
Negreanu: Q
Shulman: AA
Oh dear.
But wait!
Turn: to massive screaming from the suddenly very awake crowd — J
But wait some more!
River: …
…
…
A
The hand gave Shulman the chip lead for the final time and the two players each picked up a pocket pair on the next hand. Shulman made a set with his pocket tens to beat Negreanu’s pocket fours.
The £495,589 second place money for Negreanu was enough to make him the all-time tournament winnings leader with over $12,000,000 to his credit.
2009 WSOP Europe Main Event Final Table Payouts
- Barry Shulman - £801,603
- Daniel Negreanu - £495,589
- Praz Bansi - £360,887
- Jason Mercier - £267,267
- Markus Ristola - £200,367
- Chris Bjorin - £150,267
- Antoine Saout - £114,228
- Matt Hawrilenko - £87,074
- James Akenhead - £66,533