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October 24th 2006
WPT Festa al Lago: Andreas Walnum helps deny Joe Pelton second WPT victory
Joe Pelton, winner of the recent WPT legends of Poker, started the final table of the Festa al Lago as a significant chip leader, but in just three hands he was one of the table’s short stacks. It’s a funny old game.
The final table of the Festa al Lago kicked off with Joe Pelton firmly at its head, holding $2.9 million in chips to second placed David Baker’s $1.6 million. What happened next is something Joe Pelton would rather forget.
It got off to a good start for Pelton when he won the first hand of the day, getting Steve Wong to fold on the flop; it would be a while before he would have such success again. On the very next hand Steve Wong raised to $120,000 (six times the BB) from the small blind and Pelton moved all-in from the big blind. Wong called flipping over A-K to Pelton’s Ah-9h. The board blanked out and Wong scooped up a $1.6 million pot.
Hand number three didn’t go much better for Pelton. This time he just flat called a $60,000 raise from Andreas Walnum to see a flop of Ad-Qs-8d. Pelton then check-called a $100,000 bet and led out $250,000 on the turn, the six of diamonds. When the eight of clubs fell on the river Pelton then led out for $350,000 only for Walnum to move all-in for a further $613,000. Pelton went briefly into the tank, before making the call. Walnum turned over pocket sixes, for a rivered full house, and Pelton mucked. He was left with $850,000, just two hands after he had held a stack of $2,993,000. Walnum was the new chip leader with $2.6 million.
Speaking about the hand on his blog Pelton said he had an ace (and not the diamond flush) when he made the call, explaining that he put Walnum on KK with the king of diamonds. ‘Oops’ was how he described the start of the day, suggesting that he might try and spend a little longer thinking about such decisions in the future.
Despite being crippled Pelton was not the first to the rail; that honour fell to Kim Can Hua, who started the day as the short-stack and was never able to collect any chips. He finally found a hand with As-Ks and got his chips in only to run into the pocket aces of David Baker.
Down to $460,000 in chips things were getting desperate for Pelton when he finally picked up the hand he needed, doubling through Chris Loveland with AA versus 99. That still left Pelton with a lot of work to do, but a short while later Steve Wong made a semi-bluff with K-5 on a flop of 6-5-2 and Pelton called all-in with pocket queens, rocketing Pelton up to $2.3 million and second in chips.
Pelton was determined, it seemed, to make things exciting, and on the very next hand he was quickly back down the leaderboard when he picked a bad spot to re-raise Steve Wong all-in, pushing with ace high on the flop after Wong had hit top pair with AK. The very next hand however, Pelton was back up again, calling David Baker’s all-in bet with K-Q, and hitting a queen on the flop and a king on the turn to overtake Baker’s A-5.
You might not believe me when I say this, but on the very next hand he was at it again. This time he made what you might say was an ‘interesting’ call with 5d-4d when Chris Loveland moved all-in for a further $410,000 over the top of Pelton’s $150,000 raise.
It proved a temporary stay of execution for Loveland, who was the next player eliminated when he lost a race with 7-7 against Andreas Walnum’s A-K. Two hands later and Pelton’s extraordinary contribution to this final table was also over. He picked a bad spot to try a semi-bluff against chip leader Andreas Walnum, moving all-in with J-9 on a board showing K-8-7. Walnum, with K-Q made an easy call, and Pelton never caught the ten he needed to survive.
That left Walnum with a huge $6.2 million to $2.6 million chip lead over Steve Wong going into heads-up, and it was over in two hands. Wong called a $175,000 bet preflop with K-4, and then called $200,000 after hitting top pair on the K-J-2 flop. When the eight of clubs fell on the turn Wong bet $400,000, Walnum raised to $800,000 and Wong called. After Walnum’s minimum raise you would expect Wong would have been suspicious, but with so much committed to the pot he called Walnum’s bet on the river, and bowed out to his opponents set of two’s. Walnum picked up over $1 million for the victory, while Wong, winner of the $5000 event at the Festa al Lago, settled for just over $500,000.
Final table payouts:
1st Andreas Walnum $1,090,025
2nd Steve Wong $542,700
3rd Joe Pelton $292,220
4th Christopher Loveland $187,745
5th David Baker $125,240
6th Can Kim Hua $83,490
Submitted: 24/10/2006 12:32:39
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