WSOP 2012
The World Series of Poker, the grand daddy of poker events, is held every year and is effectively known as the world championship of poker. 2012 saw the 43rd World Series of poker event held. The tournament was played out at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Nevada. The competition saw 61 bracelet events, culminating in the main event: The $10,000 No Limit Hold’em beginning on the 7th of July. From 2008 to 2011, the Main Event final tables were delayed until November. However, the 2012 edition saw a change in this aspect as, due to the 2012 U.S. presidential election, this year’s final table was only delayed until October 29, with heads-up play commencing the day after.
The final table of the main event, consisting of the 9 finest poker players in the world at the time were: Russell Thomas, Jacob Balsiger, Jeremy Ausmus, Steven Gee, Greg Merson, Jesse Sylvia, Robert Salaburu, Andras Koroknai, and Michael Esposito. All of these players were form the United States of America with the exception of Koroknai who hailed from Hungary.
Much to the surprise of the poker world, it took over two hours to see the first elimination, and this saw Steven Gee face the long walk away from the table after losing out after overplaying pocket 8’s. However, it was not all doom and gloom for Gee as he still received a pay cheque of $755 000. Robert Salaburu then exited in a respectable 8th place, which was good for $971k. Esposito exited in 7th place, picking up $1.3 million in the process. Ausmus and Thomas came in 5th and 4th place respectively while Balsiger picked up the honour of finishing 3rd.
Eventually after many hours the tournament reached its final two players. Sylvia and koroknai squared up to play some fierce heads up poker, which only lasted 17 hands even though Merson’s lead was by no means out Sylvia’s reach as they entered heads up with 117m to 80m in chips respectively. Merson made a little progress over the next 16 hands but things ended with a massive 140 million chip pot as Sylvia chose take his chance and to call Merson’s all in pre flop bet holding QsJs. Merson laughed all the way to the bank as he claimed his $8.5million prize, after he roped Sylvia into calling his massive bet. Unfortunately, that saw the end for Sylvia. A small (but very big) consolation to Sylivia would be his $5.3million prize.
There is zero doubt that the 2012 edition of the World Series of poker did not disappoint, as the poker world experienced one of the most gruelling and riveting versions of the world famous event witnessed to date.
