4-day WSOP marathon ends with Jarvis triumph

Besting a talent-loaded field of 732 top players in a four day marathon of a World Series of Poker competition was always going to be a difficult proposition, but 26-year-old Matt Jarvis from Vancouver pulled it off in a heads up that spilled over into an extra day Sunday.

In a field that included a heavy ratio of respected professionals, the 2010 WSOP main event finalist fought his way through the opposition and a competitive and aggressive final table to finally face Justin Filtz in the heads up of event 40 $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Max, taking home the first prize of $808,538 and his first WSOP bracelet.

Jarvis was the first to admit it had been a hard slog, describing the event as a difficult and long battle against one tough opponent after another.

His heads up against Filitz ran out of time as the tenth level was reached Saturday with Jarvis holding the advantage on his opponent, forcing the two combative players to return on the following day.

Sunday provided an exciting finale as the two players struggled for supremacy for over three hours, but Jarvis's 4 to 1 chip advantage proved too much for Filitz, who had to be content with a still substantial runner up prize of $499,855.

Event 41: $1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout was decided in the small hours of Monday morning with Justin Pechie claiming the bracelet and the first prize of $167,060 on the third day of the competition.

The elimination of Mathieu Jacqmin in 3rd place set up the short heads up at level 25 between Pechie and Dale Eberle, in which Peche turned his million chip lead into victory, bundling Eberle out with the runner up prize of $103,454.

The third day's action saw 10 players remaining from the first day entry field of 538, with top players like Eugene Katchalov, Jordan Rich and Ari Engel presenting significant challenges.

Event 42: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship is another WSOP competition that will go to 4 days after failing to find a champion in the scheduled three.

At level 28 in the early hours of Monday morning play was halted with 4 players still at the table: Ben Lamb (4,335,000), John Shipley (2,705,000), Sami Kelopuro (2,155,000) and Christopher King (1,645,000).

The surviving quartet were all that remained of the 38 players entering the third day of play on Sunday, still two places away from the money bubble. The elimination of Humberto Brenes and Jyri Merivirta fixed that problem, and the rest of the field, now in the cash, warmed up the action, with Sami Kelopuro and Ben Lamb building impressive stacks.

Notable names headed for the exit during the day included Sam Stein, Justin Schwartz, Mike McDonald, David Kitai, Joao Barbosa and Matt Glantz.

Lamb appears to be the man to watch, dominating much of the play and holding an almost 2 million chip lead.

Event 43: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em also stretched into the early hours of Monday morning before play was halted at level 20 on the second day with 39 players remaining from the massive original field of 2,857.

The day started with 385 players led by Age Spets, but he was to fall later, as did Erica Schoenberg, Maria Ho, Nick Binger, Tommy Vedes and Thomas Keller, leaving Byron Kaverman in the chip lead at the end of the second day, on 1.34 million chips - well ahead of nearest rivals Douglas Yamashiro (722,000) and Simon Watt (648,000).

Day three should be an exciting affair as the battle for a final table place, and ultimately a major first prize, evolves.

Event 44: $2,500 Razz completed the seventeenth level on the second day and was stopped in the small hours of Monday morning.

23 players remain from the original 363 registrations and the second day's starter field of 157.

The day saw Daniel Idema, Chris Viox, Jason Somerville, Eric Rodawig, Viacheslav Zhukov, and Jason Mercier all bust out, but there's plenty of talent still competing in the shape of players like John Monnette, Victor Ramdin, Timothy Finne, Stuart Rutter, Chad Brown, Perry Friedman, Shawn Sheikhan, and Chau Giang.

Tommy Chen leads on 473,000 chips, but look at the top ten chasing him: John Monnette (205,000), George Lewis, Mikail Tulchinskiy, Matt Smith, Stephen Su, Scott Bohlman, Mikhail Smirnov, Jay Kwon and Victor Ramdin.

Sunday saw the latest competition to kick-off - event #45: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em - get underway with another huge field of 2,890 generating a prize pool of $2.6 million.

Seen taking their seats in the crowded venue were former main event champ Joe Hachem, Scott Montgomery, Jeffrey Papola, Lars Bonding, Matt Affleck, Faraz Jaka, Darren Woods, Adam Levy, Barry Shulman, Brock Parker and David Pham. There were many, many more recognisable names thronging the tables.

Early Monday morning level 10 was reached with only 304 players remaining from the carnage of the first day's action, led by Jon Lane, who on 141,600 is comfortably ahead of nearest rival Jonathan Driscoll (118,600).

Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, Matt Graham, Jean-Robert Bellande, Blair Hinkle, Eric Baudry, Adam Geyer, Joe Tehan and Andrew Lichtenberger are still dangerous and active in the field, but less fortunate and eliminated in the first day's bloodbath were Chris Moneymaker, Hoyt Corkins, Freddy Deeb, Tom Dwan, Scott Clements, David Singer and David Chiu.

The cash bubble bursts at position 297 in this event, so the second day is likely to be as action-packed as the first.

Source: InfoPowa News