WSOP Event #51: Carsten Joh Wins A Bracelet For Germany

The $1,500 No Limit Hold'em tournament saw the remaining 30 players take their seats on Day 3 and it didn't take long before that number fell down to the final nine players. Thibaut Durand entered the day with the chip lead and managed to fight his way through the field to enter the final table with perhaps not the largest but still respectable stack of 1,420,000.

Jason Helder had nearly 3 million in chips which made him the chip leader when the first cards were dealt at the final table, meanwhile Nathan Page and David Walasinski were swinging around 700,000 as the shortest stacks. Hand after hand was dealt but nobody was eliminated and eventually, the first victim of the final table turned out to be Nathan Page.

Page raised to 110,000 and Andrew Chen moved all-in, Action folded around back to Page who called all-in for 580,000 and showed . Chen tabled and the board came to give Chen quad nines and bust Page in 9th place. This pot boosted Chen up to over 4 million in chips.

Pocket nines proved fatal once more when Jason Helder moved all-in with and Owen Crowe called with . The board came , no quads this time but the pocket nines were still good and Helder had to make his exit in 8th place despite starting the final table with the largest stack.

Source: IMPDI for 2009 WSOP

Georgios Kapalas was the next player to leave the table, followed by Thibaut Durand and Owen Crowe. Even though Crowe was somewhat successfully keeping himself alive, he had to raise the white flag after a hand against Andrew Chen. Action began with Chen making a raise, Crowe three-bet, Chen announced all-in and Crowe went into the tank for a few minutes until he finally said, "I'm probably really going to hate myself." He made the call and showed while Chen turned over .

With the board coming , Crowe was really probably going to hate himself, as he was eliminated in 5th place. The action at the final table continued with Steven Levy leaving in 4th place and David Walasinski packing his bags in 3rd place.

The heads-up match featured Carsten Joh (pictured right) holding a 6,860,000 to 5,665,000 chip lead over Andrew Chen. The two battled back and forth for a few hands until Joh managed to win a big pot. Andrew Chen called from the button and Carsten Joh checked his option. The flop came , Joh checked, Chen bet 140,000, Joh check-raised to 400,000 and Chen called. The turn brought , Joh bet 1,000,000 an Chen called. The river came and both players checked. Joh tabled for two pair and won the pot which gave him a dominant chip lead.

It was all over soon, as Chen found himself all-in for 2,185,000 and Joh snap-called. Chen revealed and Joh turned over . The board came to give Joh a set of sixes and the WSOP bracelet along with $664,426 in prize money. Andrew Chen had to walk away without a bracelet, but he did receive $412,632 for his efforts.

Here are the final table results:

World Series Of Poker Event #51 Results
Place	Name	Prize
1st	Carsten Joh	$664,426
2nd	Andrew Chen	$412,632
3rd	David Walasinski	$272,405
4th	Steven Levy	$192,650
5th	Owen Crowe	$145,199
6th	Thibaut Durand	$115,817
7th	Georgios Kapalas	$97,634
8th	Jason Helder	$86,702
9th	Nathan Page	$80,894