Well.......we are down to heads up at the final table of the WSOP Main Event and the first 17+ hours have been interesting.
With Darvin Moon and Joe Cada being the last two standing, the big stories emerging are some mistakes by Moon and the luck of Cada.
Most will agree that the level of play throughout was generally very good....players seemed to bring their A game. Moon made a couple of questionable plays that were widely discussed but that was a very small part of the story.
Luck seemed to be the biggest story........the ones with the highest percentage of lucky cards on board are the last two playing. Phil Ivey and Begleiter had the lowest luck numbers.
The cliff notes for some of the major hands are:
#59 Akenhead 3 3 vs Shaffel 9 9 9's hold up and Akenhead is out
#75 Shaffel A A vs Buchman K K Quad K's hit board and Shaffel out
#175 Ivey A K vs Moon A Q Q 6 6 3 5 and Ivey is out
#187 Begleiter Q Q vs Moon A Q 7 4 8 3 A and Begleiter is out
#195 Shulman J J vs Cada 3 3 8 4 3 7 Q and Shulman is crippled
#236 Shulman 7 7 vs Saout A 9 10 9 6 Q 4 and Shulman is out
#271 Buchman A 5 vs Moon K J 2 9 Q K 5 and Buchman is out
#272 Saout Q Q vs Cada 2 2 7 2 9 3 6 and Saout is crippled
#276 Saout 8 8 vs Cada A K 5 4 5 10 K and Saout is out
In 17+ hours of play there were 21 All in's with 18 of those being preflop. 43% of the time the dog won. Only 4 of these hands were coin flip situations. Percentage wise, Cada and Moon were the luckiest and Ivey and Begleiter were by far the unluckiest according to a post on the TwoPlusTwo forum with a whopping minus 60% figure, We all know that to get to this stage that all of the players must have some skills and get lucky many times but the luck factor so far has played a big role in the outcome here at the final table.
One thing that has really been great the past two years is the quality of the play. Not a lot of hype and guys just doing their thing. No theatrics......just poker players playing poker. Yes, luck has played a part but the players have been great and a credit to the game.
Tonight at midnight here in Texas....the Hag will be glued to the audio broadcast on Bluff.....do not expect to be the marathon it was last year. Then will be watching ESPN on Tuesday....hate this delay as it greatly changes the dynamic of the game (and a subject for another day) but we will take what we can get.
