WSOP Event #32: Angel Guillen Takes Down The Competition

While our Team PokerStrategy.com member Nazgul (pictured left) was out of luck in day two of this $2,000 No Limit Hold'em Event and hit the rails after reaching the money, 19 players returned for the final day to fight it out for the bracelet and over half a million for first place.

With almost a million in chips, Jason Boyes entered the day as the chip leader, followed closely by Mika Paasonen and Neng Lee. With barely more than a hundred thousand remaining, the short stack Johan Dunder was eliminated on 19th place.

Minutes later, he was followed by Matthew Waxman. While the former had 3 outs with his AJ, the latter was in even worse shape with his TT - both of them ran into KK and couldn't catch.

As the short stacks failed to double up time and time again, three more players took their leave in a matter of ten minutes - namely Alex Meidinger, Jamie Roberts and Jim Pannell. The first busted with 45 against AQ, the second lost a coin-flip with AK versus QQ and the last one couldn't catch with his A7 against 99.

Rory Monahan was the next to go as he ran into AA when pushing with A5. Moments later, Neng Lee was a bit more unlucky when his AK ran into Ben Bagamery's KK and he couldn't improve - he had to leave the tournament area on 15th place.

It wouldn't be of much use to Bagamery, though, as he was soon to follow when his push from the button with KQ was called by Eric Ladny's AK in the BB. He couldn't catch a lucky card, either, and had to join up with Lee.

Eric Ladny also eliminated Peter Feldman a short time later, again calling a push from the button, this time with a weaker KQ. While Bagamery couldn't catch, Ladny hit his king on the board to beat Feldman's A7.

Finally, David Vu was the last one to go before reaching the final nine players when he pushed his A9 from UTG and was called by Jason Boyes who was holding TT. The board came down JJ5TA and Boyes full house sealed Vu's fate.

Paasonen wasn't to be fooled, however, and called with his AQ which had MacNeil's hand dominated. The shorter stack's hand failed to catch yet again and MacNeil's elimination on 7th place boosted Paasonen up to suffocating lead with 2,725,000 in chips.

The next elimination was another short stack story, as Daniel Makowsky got it all-in with a nice AK only to be called by Steve Kohner's 33. In line with tonight's "the shorter stack loses the all-in" rule, Makowsky failed to catch and had to take his leave on 6th place.

The story continued on as Angel Guillen raised Eric Ladny in the BB. The latter moved in short with JJ, and - of course - Guillen's KT had to catch. Flopping two-pair, he sent yet another short stack to the rails.

And to top it off, Steve Kohner called Guillen's all-in and we had another coin-flip situation won by the bigger stack. With Kohner's AK up against Guillen's JJ, the short stack obviously failed to catch and Kohner was eliminated on fourth place.

The tournament really had to come down to three-handed play for the audience to finally see some serious post-flop action. Jason Boyes had been re-raising Mike Paasonen out of some pots pre-flop, so Paasonen decided to make a stand and called one of Boyes raises. The flop came down and with for a middle pair, Paasonen decided to raise Boyes' continuation bet.

After thinking for a while, the aggressive Boyse came over the top and moved all-in, putting Paasonen into the tank for a whole five minutes. Alternating between starring down his opponent and closing his eyes to think, he finally made a great call as Boyes flipped over for a worse middle pair and a gutshot. The on the turn didn't change things and the eliminated Boyse on third place.

After an action-packed and very aggressive final table, Mika Paasonen entered the heads-up against Angel Guillen (pictured left) with a slight chip lead of 4.9 to 4.3 million chips. We finally got to see a lot of post-flop hands in the final duel as the two players started feeling each other out. Later, the aggression slowly increased as the blinds went up and pre-flop 3-bets became more frequent.

Overall, it seemed like Angel Guillen was able to continuously out-play Paasonen and managed to build up a chip lead of 6.7 to 2.4 million. There were less and less flops as the players switched to a more aggressive raise/fold approach, but Guillen stayed in control all the way.

The deciding hand finally came when Guillen called a pre-flop raise and led out on the flop. Paasonen decided to move all-in for his remaining chips with for top pair and was snap-called by Guillen's for a set. The on the turn left Paasonen drawing dead and the on the river wrapped things up; Angel Guillen emerged victorious from a hard-fought heads-up to take home the bracelet and a prize money of $530,548.