History of Poker! Reliving the WSOP Main Event 2008!

This past week Michiel Maes (www.madmanpoker.be) came up with an excellent idea. Let’s jut relive the past Main Event final table. If we can get nine players to attend we can all represent one of the ‘November Nine’. We would get the exact same amount of chips as they had, the exact position,… And I guarantee you, it turned out to have a different ending! Let’s first take a look at who participated and their stacksizes and seating arrangements:

Thomas Vanbrabant – Dennis Philips – 26300 chips
Jonas De Ridder – Craig Marquis – 10210 chips
Stijn Heyens – Ylon Schwartz – 12530 chips
Mickey C – Scott Montgomery – 19690 chips
Michiel Maes – Darus Suharto – 12520 chips
Jessica De Roeck – David “Chino” Rheem – 10230 chips
Jeroen Van Acker – Ivan Demidov – 24400 chips
Ewout Callens – Kelly Kim – 2620 chips
Thomas Schoofs – Peter Eastgate – 18380 chips
(Because we do not have that much chips we divided the original stacksizes by a 1000, as well as the blinds and ante’s.)

So I began the night third in chips and I must say I was happy with my stacksize and my place at the table. I had position on Stijn Heyens (www.madmanpoker.be), which I find an advantage any time we play Hold’em. And to my left were Michiel Maes and Jessica De Roeck, two of the more tighter players. I haven’t been able to play as much as usual due to finals and the holidays, that’s why I looked forward to last night so much! I really felt good. The night started out wonderfull for me. After loosing some chips to Jeroen, I picked up 10s10d. Michiel Maes raised it up, Thomas Vanbrabant (www.mickeycpoker.be) reraised and I smooth called, while Michiel went out of the way. The flop came: A 10 10. OMG!!!!! I just had flopped quads and man I had a rough time controlling myself. I checked to Thomas. He bet out for 4600. I did a bit of acting and eventually min-raised. That’s where I made my mistake. I should have just smooth called and see what happened on the turn. Thomas is just to good at making these incredible laydowns. After some thought he folded his Jacks face up. I flashed my tens and was off to a great start!

I picked up a huge amount of Jeroen Van Ackers stack when I made a set of nines on the flop and I just didn’t put him on the flush (not even when there were four clubs on the board). I just was playing some of the best poker I’ve ever played. First one out was Ewout Callens, I doubled him up once but the huge blinds in relation to his small stack just did him in eventually. In our version: Kelly Kim is out in 9th place! It didn’t take that much longer before we lost another player. This time Jonas De Ridder hit the rail. So Craig Marquis was out in 8th. We continued the night 7-handed and the next one to hit the rail was Stijn Heyens. He went out on a semi-bluff. He had a gut-shot straightdraw but ran into Jessica’s top pair. And we lost our version of Ylon Schwartz in 7th place. I felt a bit glad that Stijn hit the rail pretty early on (Sorry Stijn ;-) ), but if he gets hold of some chips he can be very hard to get rid off!

By this time I was one of the chip leaders along with Jessica. She was a real betting-machine yesterday. I never seen her play so agressively. And it worked! Next crucial hand was between Jeroen Van Acker and Thomas ‘Rocky’ Schoofs. All the money went in on the turn. Both players had just A-high (Jeroen also had a flushdraw). The ace on the river was the lifesavior of Rocky. His Jack-kicker outkicked Jeroens 10-kicker. This hand just left Jeroen crippled. Surprisingly Rocky was the next to go out. I can’t remember the exact hand but he was felted by Thomas Vanbrabant. Peter Eastgate couldn’t capture the bracelet in our version and was gone in 6th place! Now only five players remained and with a crippled Jeroen I was the most agressive player left. So I kicked it up a notch. I made one excellent bluff against Thomas Vanbrabant. On a board of J 10 X Thomas made a bet and I raised with A8os. He called. Turn was a blank. Thomas checked and I made a huge bet. I knew that Thomas can lay these hands down if he thinks he doesn’t have it. I was counting on that ability now! I really needed him to do this! I had squadoosh. He eventually did and I raked in a nice pot. Not much later Jeroen hit the rail. His pocket deuces couldn’t hold up against my A3 when an ace came on the board. Demidov had left the building in 5th!

So down to the last four players: Michiel, Jessica, Thomas and me. Now I went into hyper-agression-mode! With the blinds and ante’s that high I believed it was the right thing to do. I really raised a huge amount of hands. Picked up pots preflop or on the flop with large bets. Made people make decisions for their tournament-lives,… I was just in the zone. And I was loving every last bit of it! Unfortunately Thomas was the next one to go out. I would have loved to battle this out heads-up with him! He lost a huge pot against Michiel and finally hit the rail when his Ah6h couldn’t improve against the pocket Kings of Jessica. Dennis Philips eventually became 4th. With three players left I was a huge chipleader. I knew that I could win this one! Michiel went out on a very strange hand. I can’t remember the details but he had complete air when he pushed all in and was called by Jessica’s turned boat!

So down to heads-up: Jessica against me! I had a huge chiplead, I believe I had around 85k and Jessica had about 35k. I played a nice match against her, really putting the pressure on her with large bets and raises. At 01:10am I won our version of the final table. Jessica went out in second place with pocket tens agains my A7os! You cannot believe how glad I am to finally win a live-tournament! That monkey really is of my back now. We’ve played so many live-tournament, TPC, HSOP, TAD,… and I never have been able to win one. Except now and that just feels wonderful! I feel a bit for Jessica, she really played at the top of her game yesterday, that was the best poker I’ve seen her play. I’m impressed!

Just for the record I’ll give you the results of last night and the results of the actual final table.

History of Poker/WSOP Main Event 2008                                                      
9th Ewout Callens/Kelly Kim 8th                                                       
8th Jonas De Ridder/Craig Marquis 9th                                            
7th Stijn Heyens/Ylon Scwartz 5th                                                  
6th Thomas Schoofs/Peter Eastgate 1st                                          
5th Jeroen Van Acker/Ivan Demidov 2nd                                         
4th Thomas Vanbrabant/Dennis Phillips 3rd                                    
3rd Michiel Maes/Darus Suharto 6th                                               
2nd Jessica De Roeck/David ‘Chino’ Rheem 7th                             
1st Mickey C/Scott Montgomery 5th                                              

Conclusion is, if we would have played that final table I would have gone home $9,152,416 richer :-)! Anyway I’ve had a lot of fun and hope we will do this again but then the final table of the Main Event 2007 and after that 2006,…

Later,

A very happy Mickey C!