Wednesday, June 17, 2009
WSOP event 29: Chan falls short as Wolpert lays down the law

2009 World Series of Poker Event 29: $10,000 World Championship Heads-up No Limit Hold’em (256 entries; 32 players paid; USD $2,406,400 prize pool)



All eyes were Johnny Chan’s charge towards a record-tying 11th WSOP bracelet, but the dual WSOP Main Event winner bowed out in the quarter-finals of the $10,000 Heads-up World Championship.

Instead, the spotlight shone on 26-year-old former poker pro and law student Leo Wolpert. He graduated with an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and spent two years as a poker pro, mostly playing online. Wolpert was so successful that he built up a huge bankroll playing mostly cash games. He decided to use his poker winnings to go back to school.

Wolpert is spending the entire summer in Las Vegas, where he is working an internship with the Nevada Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Wolpert is committed to social justice. He intends to use his law degree to help the less fortunate and disadvantaged.

He once appeared on the popular television game show Jeopardy. In his appearance, he faced Ken Jennings during the middle of his record-setting 74-game win streak (the longest win streak of any Jeopardy winner in history).

His best previous finish at the WSOP was a third-place showing in the 2008 No Limit Hold’em Shootout event. He won $625,682 for his victory in this event.

“I used to play a lot of heads-up cash games online. A ton of games. I just recently went back to playing more six-handed games, which is less variance, but I had not played No-Limit heads-up cash games since last November. I tried not to play any huge pots without the goods.”

Wolpert won nine straight heads-up matches to achieve his gold bracelet victory. He said that his toughest heads-up opponent was John Juanda.

“He was super tough. I ran really good to beat him. I was in an all-in coin flip for my life against him and I managed to win. But everyone here is tough. You don’t get into a $10,000 buy-in event unless you are good.  They were all very good heads-up players,” Wolpert said.

The runner up was John Duthie, from London, England. Duthie became the first European player in history to win more than $1 million playing Euro-tournaments. In 2005, he co-founded the European Poker Tour, which is now one of the world’s most successful series of tournaments.

The final best-of-three match lasted about eight hours. John Duthie took the first match, which lasted 96 hands.

On losing the first match, Wolpert said he was “steaming a little bit – I’m not going to lie. I just decided I have to grind back and get the best two out of three. So, I stayed calm and remembered there was another match coming up. And hopefully I could run a little better the next time.  I would not say it strengthened my resolve.  I would say I was already pretty resolute (to win).”

Wolpert won the second match, which went much shorter at just nine hands.  The third match lasted a staggering 191 hands. The final hand of the tournament came when Duthie had 10-3 and flopped top pair, as the flop showed 10-5-3. Wolpert had 5-3, good for two-pair (fives and threes). Two blanks fell on the turn and river, giving Wolpert the victory.

Past WSOP gold bracelet winners who cashed in this event were Johnny Chan, Jason Mercier, Brian Lemke, Steve Zolotow and dual 2009 bracelet winner Brock Parker. Noted poker theorist, writer, and teacher Mike Caro cashed in this event.

The $10,000 buy-in Heads-up No-Limit Hold’em World Championship attracted 256 entries. The event was locked out at 256 players due to the heads-up single-elimination format. The total prize pool amounted to $2,406,400. The top 64 finishers (which meant all winners of at least two heads-up matches) collected prize money.

Results: Event 28 – $10,000 World Championship Heads-up No Limit Hold’em

1 Leo Wolpert (Fairfax, VA) $625,682
2 John Duthie (London, UK) $386,636
3 Jamin Stokes (Grand Rapids, CO) $214,289
4 Nathan Doudney (Rockwall, TX) $214,289
5 Johnny Chan (Las Vegas, NV) $92,580
6 Dustin Woolf (Los Angeles, CA) $92,580
7 Stephen O'Dwyer (Las Vegas, NV) $92,580
8 Bryan Pellegrino (Dansbury, NH) $92,580

• Report by Nolan Dalla, additional reporting by Sean Callander, pic: IMPDI for the 2009 WSOP