Wednesday night and Thursday morning saw one of the toughest final tables in World Series Of Poker history play some fantastic poker in No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball w/rebuys, with winner Mike Matusow ensuring an entertaining evening en route to victory in event #18.
Matusow triumphed over Jeffrey Lisandro in the final after both Barry Greenstein and Erick Lindgren were felled by bad beats on major pots. That final foursome was joined by David Benyamine, Tony G and defending player of the year Tom Schneider at the start of the day. Those three finished 7th, 6th and 5th respectively
Simultaneously, in a more familiar game, Daniel Negreanu was making his first final table run of the 2008 WSOP. Daniel was one of 479 initial entrants in event #20 - $2,000 limit hold’em and had been amongst the leaders the entire way. With the field reduced to ten in the wee hours of Thursday morning however, he’d been cut off at the knees and plagued with the short stack. He wasn’t done yet though.
With everyone wanting a piece of the final table, the ten-man table went into shutdown mode and Negreanu took full advantage. He doubled up his 90,000 stack, started stealing some blinds and then took one last substantial pot from Derek Lerner.
Lerner made a raise from the button and Daniel re-raised with the small blind. The table folded and Lerner called to see a flop of Kd-Qs-7c. Negreanu bet, Lerner called and the turn came 9h. Negreanu bet, Lerner called and the river came 10d. It was a good one for Daniel, who was playing his favorite hand, 10-7. he checked, lerner bet and Daniel called to take down the pot.
Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com
