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Event #29 World Championship Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em
(256 player max)

Day 1
Buy-in: $10,000
Players: 256 (sellout)
Prize pool: $2,406,400 to the top 32

This should be good. Lots of the big names are taking to the tables in a battle royal in heads up competition. Players will be seated two matches per table with a dealer at either end. Last year's champion Kenny Tran is in the field of 256 with incredible match ups being seen. Howabout Yevgeniv Timoshenko vs Barry Greenstein OR J.C. Tran vs Dario Mineri? Or Hoyt Corkins vs Vadim Trincher? Well we know Hoyt took his match, so he will advance. Some of the players resolved their matched very quickly and others, it took a while. In fact Barry Greenstein has already been seen signing a copy of his book to give to Timoshenko who won their match up.

Erick Lindgren had his pocket Q's crushed by Jesper Petersen who managed to pair his Ace card, resulting in a win for Petersen. Chris Ferguson won the match with Greg Mueller when he made a Queen high flush on the river, advancing Ferguson to the next round. In the Greg Raymer vs. Issac Haxton match, it was Raymer who won with A K suited to send Haxton to the rail. Howard Lederer h lost his match with Johannes Steindl after Steindl made his straight on the river. And it was Benny Spindler who took out Phil Hellmuth Jr. when Spindler made two pair on the river (J's and 7's), putting Hellmuth's chance for another bracelet on hold for now.

After Day 1, here are the 64 players that will advance to the next round. They are listed by table, seat and player name.

Day 2

As you can see from above, there are many incredible new matches to be played today. All players will begin with 120K in their stacks. Action was underway at 2:00 PM. Antonio Esfandiari was soon seen shaking the hand of Dmitri Lesnoy after he won their match up. Jonathan Jaffe with K 9 won against Dario Mineri with K 8 after the board helped neither player by the river. Leo Wolpert won against David Pham when his pocket J's held up to the last card dealt. Scott Fischman with pocket 7's was no match against Yevgeniv Timoshenko, allowing Timoshenko to advance.

Johnny Chan defeated Jimmy D'Ambrosio to make the next day matches. John Duthie also took another step towards taking the gold bracelet for this event back to the United Kingdom for its new home. Jamin Stokes shut down a bracelet dream for Brian Lemke when he made two pair on the river (K's and 10's). After 12 hours of play, the field of 64 was narrowed down to only 8. Come back to see who the new champion is!

Payout schedule for final table:

  1. $625,682
  2. $386,636
  3. $214,289
  4. $214,289
  5. $92,580
  6. $92,580
  7. $92,580
  8. $92,580
Next Round Table Match Ups:

Table 150
  1. 1 Leo Wolpert
  2. 2 Dustin Woolf
  3. 1 Jamin Stokes
  4. 2 Johnny Chan
Table 151
  1. 1 Nathan Doudney
  2. 2 Bryan Pellegrino
  3. 1 John Duthie
  4. 2 Stephen O'Dwyer

Day 3

The day began with Johnny Chan in contention for another bracelet, which would place him at 11 that ties with Phil Hellmuth who is the top bracelet holder in the world. But it will not be an easy feat with the other 7 just as determined to have gold on their arms as well. At 2:45 PM the dealers began to deal. First casualty was Bryan Pellegrino in 8th. In a match vs Nathan Doudney, both players went all-in with A Q suited. It looked like a split pot until Doudney received 3 more hearts to make a flush, winning his round. O'Dwyer lost his bid against Duthie when O'Dwyer made a 6 high straight to advance. Wolpert with pocket 6's saw them turn into a set on the flop, winning his match against Dustin Woolf. Also in a heartfelt defeat, Johnny Chan lost to Jamin Stokes when Stokes made a Broadway straight on the turn card.

So the semi-final matches are Nathan Doudney vs John Duthie and Jamin Stokes vs Leo Wolpert. These two matches took hours to see through. In fact by 11:00 PM, tournament officials decide to have the last two players come back at 12 noon for a fourth day of action.

By 11:20 PM Duthie emerged at the winner between him and Doudney. Duthie managed to have his pocket Q's turn into two pair on the flop (Q's and 4's) for the win. A little after midnight, Wolpert battled his was to victory when Wolpert made two pair (J's and 8's) to advance. Soooooo the final match up is below.

Final Heads Up Match

  1. John Duthie -- 3,840,000 chips
  2. Leo Wolpert -- 3,840,000 chips
Results of other 4 semi-final match ups:
  1. Jamin Stokes -- $214,289
  2. Nathan Doudney -- $214,289
  3. Johnny Chan -- $92,580
  4. Dustin Woolf -- $92,580
  5. Stephen O'Dwyer -- $92,580
  6. Bryan Pellegrino -- $92,580

Day 4 -- Final Heads up Match

Here is the hot summary from the WSOP on the heads up:

The 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in Heads-Up No-Limit Hold�em World Champion is Leo Wolpert. Wolpert is a 26-year-old former professional poker player who is currently attending law school. He is enrolled at the University of Virginia. He just completed his first year. Wolpert graduated with an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. He 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 collected $625,682 for first place. He was also awarded his first WSOP gold bracelet.

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 tournament was played over three consecutive days. Since 256 players started the tournament in a heads-up format on Day One, 128 winners survived to play in the second round. The second round produced 64 survivors. The 64 played down to 32 in round three. On Day Two, the field of 32 was reduced to 16 in round four. Round five took the field from 16 down to 8. Round six (on Day Three) played from 8 down to 4. The final four players took seats in two separate matches at the final table. Those two winners faced off in a "Best Two-Out-Of-Three" heads-up match played out on ESPN's main stage.

The tournament was played over four consecutive days. An extra day was added because of the length of play, particularly on Day Three. The semi-final matches (eight playing down to the final two) lasted ten hours. Tournament officials decided it was best not to force the finalists to play a best-of-three series immediately following the long day. So, the tournament went an extra day. Wolpert won nine straight heads-up matches to achieve his gold bracelet victory. The final best-of-three match lasted about eight hours. John Duthie took the first match, which lasted 96 hands. Leo Wolpert won the second match, which went much shorter at just 9 hands. The third match was won by Wolpert and lasted a staggering 191 hands. The final hand of the tournament came when John 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.


Leo Wolpert

  1. Leo Wolpert -- $625,682
  2. John Duthie -- $386,636