2009 WSOP main event champion and Team PokerStars pro Joe Cada has taken down the $10,000 buy-in six-handed no-limit hold’em event at the WSOP to win his second bracelet. It is a memorable victory as Cada has managed to end a long run of WSOP Main Event champions that haven’t been able to go on and claim a second career bracelet.
Prior to this, 2001 WSOP main event champion Carlos Mortensen won a second bracelet shortly after in a $5,000 limit hold’em event in 2003, but no other Main Event champion has managed to follow suit until Monday night.
In total there were 264 entrants, but the final day of the $10,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em championship started with 13 players returning to the table. It only took a few hours for the final table to be set when Martin Jacobson was knocked out in seventh place by Dario Sammartino.
But Sammartino was still left pretty short stacked and was out in sixth place when he was all in pre-flop with Jc-Jd and he was up against Ausmus’ Qd-Qc.
In a fortunate turn of events, Ausmus had gone from being the shortest stacked player heading into the final day’s play to being the chip leader. Of course, Ausmus is no stranger to WSOP final table, he managed to make the final table of the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event.
With the blinds at 20k/40k, Erick Lindgren moved all in for his remaining 490k in chips and Max Silver called in the big blind with Kh-4d. Lindgren had Td-9h and needed some luck to stay in the tournament but it wasn’t to be and Lindgren was out in fifth place.
Silver lost a crucial hand when he check called three streets against Cada on a board of Kc-Qc-2d-6s-3h with Qd-8s but Cada was firing with the near top of his range showing up with As-Kh, leaving Silver as one of the short stacks. JC Tran couldn’t manage to get anything going at the final table and was out in fourth place, and shortly after his knockout Silver was eliminated in third place by Cada.
When the heads up match began Ausmus held more than 60% of the chips in play. With the blinds at 25k/50k, Ausmus and Cada were still playing very deep-stacked. As a result, the early stages of the heads-up play moved along at a slow pace.
A huge pot developed when Cada called off his entire stack with 8s-8c and was in a race situation against Ausmus’ Ad-Jd. The flop was a good one for Cada, but the turn gave Ausmus a lot of outs as he picked up a straight and nut flush draw, but the river bricked, which left Ausmus with just 550k in chips. He then managed to get a quick double up getting all his chips in with Ad-8h against Cada’s 3s-3h, which held up.
However, it wasn’t long after that when a cooler hand ended any chance Ausmus had of winning the tournament. Ausmus’ Js-Jd was up against Cada’s Qh-Qc. His Queens held up and Cada claimed his second WSOP bracelet and top prize of $670,041.
Here are the results and payouts of Event #32 of the final table:
- Joe Cada – $670,041
- Jeremy Ausmus – $414,104
- Max Silver – $273,646
- JC Tran – $185,971
- Erick Lindgren – $129,192
- Dario Sammartino – $91,670
Other notables that cashed in this WSOP event included Layne Flack who was eliminated in thirteenth place collecting $28,414 for his efforts, and German high roller Igor Kurganov managed a fifteenth place in the event, which was also good for $28,414.