Chiu comeback stuns Hansen

Author: Simon Dexter

No-one could have thought that Gus Hansen was not going to win his fourth World Poker Tour title at the Five-Star World Poker Classic at Bellagio, Las Vegas, last weekend! But amazingly the ‘Great Dane’ was somehow unable to convert a five to one chip lead heads up and had to settle for second place, with David Chiu completing an amazing comeback to scoop the $3.39 million first prize and claim his first WPT title.

The poker gods had appeared to be with Hansen as he took the chip lead into the final table and then preceded to destroy the rest of his rivals to take what seemed an unassailable position.

The cards were running for Hansen, there can be no doubt about that, as he took just 22 hands to get rid of Jeff King, Tommy Le, Cory Carroll and John Roveto to hold 23 million of the chips in play against Chiu’s 4.3 million heads up.

To give you a feel of how hot Hansen was running, let’s go through his trail of destruction as he eliminated man after man.

To knock King out in sixth place, he called an A-Q of clubs all-in with a 10-9 of spades and hit a 10 on the river, before his set of 10s was too good for Le’s trip fives to narrow the competition down to four.

Next to go was Cory Carroll in what proved to be a pivotal hand of the table as Hansen raised, only to be re-raised from the big blind with a call being his response.

The flop came Qc-Jd-6d and after spending what seemed to be an age thinking about it, the Dane moved all-in to put Carroll under pressure. If Carroll were to win the pot, he would be in a dominant position but if he folded, he would still occupy second in the chip count.

Carroll called with Ad-Js for second pair, while Hansen turned over 7d-5d and he is now looking for help, but he completed his flush with a 3d on the river to send another man packing.

John Roveto probably felt he was a little bit unlucky as his all-in move with a pair of kings was insta-called by Hansen holding A-10c and a J-9-8 rainbow gave the latter an open-ended straight draw, which was nailed with a 7 on the river.

Hansen now seemed set to complete the rout with a huge chip advantage over Chiu but his luck appeared to have run out as the four-time WSOP bracelet winner refused to bust out and doubled up after 10 hands, before continuing to chip up until he actually took over chip lead after around 60 hands of play.

It then took just two hands before the match was over as Hansen, holding two pair, was hurt by the river this time, when an ace gave Chiu - who had top pair with the nut-flush draw - trip aces and his first WPT title.

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Tags: poker tournament, World Poker Tour, WPT

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 10:11 am and is filed under News & Promotions Blog, Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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