WSOP Event #15: PokerStrategist Fabian Quoss Takes Second Place

In Event #15 of the WSOP - a $5,000 No Limit Hold'em tournament - our German PokerStrategist Fabian Quoss was able to make it to second place. In the heads-up against American Brian Lemke, he was fighting it out for the bracelet and the $692,658 for first place.

The
first bracelet of this year's WSOP was so close, but in the end, the
community can only congratulate him for the second place:
PokerStrategy.com member
Fabian 'fabstinho' Quoss was able to make it into
the heads-up of Event #15.

In the heads-up, he had to give it up to the American Brian Lemke, who
could thus secure the prize money of $692,658. He worked hard for his
triumph, because fabstinho (pictured on the final
table on the left) knew how to defend his chip lead of seven to two
million chips. The American put up a lot of pressure and was initially
able to narrow down the gap pot by pot, but Quoss took the dominant
lead back on a KK4 board which was completed by a 9 on the turn and a 2
on the river. After some consideration, fabstinho
raised the pot to 2 million chips, and after Quoss showed KQ, Lemke had to muck his hand.

After
re-establishing the status quo, our Platinum member used the momentum
to keep Lemke (pictured right) at bay. This worked out well for him -
until Lemke decided to switch to a push-or-fold strategy.
fabstinho called one of the pushes with QT in hearts, while Lemke showed A6.
The board didn't come down with many hearts, nor did it show a queen or
a ten, and Lemke was able double up for the first time.

After this hand, the play was on par - not
only when it came to the chip stacks. Lemke used a lot of flops to
outplay his opponent - he showed 73 on a AJ3
board, for instance. His re-raise had forced the German to lay down his
hand. fabstinho, the youngster from Nuremberg,
was however able to optimally adjust to his opponent after some time,
taking back the control of the game by taking the initiative and
confronting Lemke's small ball poker with lots of raises. He was able
to conserve the chip lead and after winning a nice pot worth one
million with A9 against A8, things started looking a lot better again for fabstinho.

A lot of blinds changed stacks before the next all-in took place. Lemke put all of his chips at stake with - and was behind against fabstinho's who decided to call after hesitating for quite a while.

He
didn't like the flop which came with three club cards and gave Lemke an
additional flush draw to his outs on the king and the ten. When the
completed Lemke's flush draw, he took over the chip lead with 5.3 to
4.7 million in chips - and fabstinho lost a hand
where he was favourite to take down the bracelet.

It was now up to our PokerStrategist to deal
with the disadvantage, but the first few hands didn't leave room for
much hope. In one of them, both players had checked down until the
river when Quoss bet out on the board with two jacks and two nines. He
was confronted with a raise from Lemke and decided to call.

The American from Pennsylvania however revealed a
jack and Quoss lost another 750,000 in chips in this pot. The next
notable pot looked similar: our best hope for the first bracelet lost
another 700,000 in chips, after Lemke picked up a nine on the turn
which was enough for him to win the hand, even after the action on the
ace high flop.

The commentator called it "quite a long road" when he talked about
the heads-up the two finalists had played. The end of the road came in
the form of a straight: it was a pre-flop all-in where our German hope
showed AQ and thus completely dominated Lemke's A8.

The flop couldn't have made things more exciting as it came down with 9TJ - both players had picked up an OESD! Only one of them was able to complete the draw, though: when the Q
came down on the turn, Brian Lemke could end the tournament. The river
left fabstinho with outs to the eights and kings
for a chop, but he wasn't meant to get lucky this time. The J on the river sealed things and the American applause just blew up.

It was clear that Fabian 'fabstinho' Quoss
would be out of words in the interview that followed. In the end, he
thanked everyone for their support in his final words:

"Thank you for your support, and... just thank you!"

We also thank our PokerStrategist for his excellent achievement and
wish him all the best for his upcoming events in the WSOP. Lots of luck
for your next heads-up!

World Series Of Poker Event #15 Results
Place	Name	Prize money
1st	Brian Lemke	$692,658
2nd	Fabian 'fabstinho' Quoss	$427,912
3rd	Thomas Keller	$280,852
4th	Mike Sowers	$194,931
5th	Lika Gerasimova	$142,688
6th	Danny Illingworth	$109,872
7th	Isaac Baron	$88,784
8th	Billy Kopp	$75,115
9th	Christian Iacobellis	$66,403