The latest World Poker Tour final table of 2007 never looked likely to start of with a bang. Play had virtually ground to a halt on the previous day as the final table bubble grew near, and some extraordinarily conservative play almost brought the watching crowd to tears.

Unfortunately there was no change once the bubble had burst, at least not at first, and it took over two hours before we lost the first player from the final table. That was Alan Kessler, one of the most experienced players at the felt, but also the shortest stacked at the start of play. He eventually fell to a nasty bad beat, getting it all-in with A-T against Fred Goldberg’s A-8 but losing when the 6-3-7-5-4 board gave Goldberg a lucky straight.

Meanwhile conservative poker continued to be the dominant force, with chip leader Raj Patel making an astonishingly passive flat call when he should have been raising with A-J on a K-J-T-T-J board (a full house) after Seth Berger had bet out for $300,000.

It was a lifeline for Berger, who could have shipped more chips on that hand, but it was not one he could not take advantage of. He busted out next when he re-raised Fred Goldberg all-in only to find Raj Patel moving all-in behind him. Goldberg folded and Berger was in deep trouble with A-5 against Raj’s pocket aces. The 6-4-3 flop gave Seth hope but there was no 7 or 2 on the turn or river and he was out in fifth.

He was followed to the rail by Fred Goldberg, unlucky to lose when all-in with pocket jacks against Paul Matteo’s As-5s. Matteo caught a flush and gutshot draw on the flop and made his flush on the turn.

Goldberg’s elimination at the hands of Matteo left a fairly evenly stacked three-handed table. Raj still held the chip lead, but with just $3.45 million to Paul Matteo’s $2.83 million and Antonio “Bagels” Cavezza’s $2.04 million he did not have any of the breathing space he been used to up till then.

But that all changed a few moments later in what was certainly the most dramatic hand of the night, and was probably one of the cruellest bad beats you’ll ever see in the WPT.

The hand began with Raj raising to $200,000 from the button. Paul Matteo quickly folded his small blind but Tony re-popped Raj for a further $400,000, making it $600,000 in total. Raj then came over the top once more, making it $1.5 million to go and “Bagels” instantly moved all-in.

Alarm bells should have been going off inside Raj’s head at this point, but instead he nearly beat Bagels into the pot, confidently flipping over Ah-8h. When Tony, as expected, turned over pocket aces it looked as if Raj’s run had finally come to an end, but when you’re hot you’re hot and Raj was most definitely hot.

Even if you weren’t looking you could have instantly guessed by the anguished howl from the crowd that the flop had come down with two eights. It was a devastating blow, and the case ace never showed up to save Bagel’s day. He was out in third, taking home $370,000 and one of the worst bad beat stories in WPT history.

It was clearly Raj’s day, and no statistical probabilities were going to get in this man’s way - Lady Luck had him in her sights. Nevertheless Paul Matteo by no means made it easy, but when he turned trip kings in the deciding hand he could be forgiven for thinking this was a good time to extract some value. Unfortunately for him Raj had an open ended straight draw and was happy to call Paul’s $400,000 on the turn. Needless to say the straight hit on the river and Paul had to call when Raj moved all-in. Raj turned over the bad news and celebrated the victory. Raj Patel was the new WPT Foxwood’s World Poker Challenge champion.

Here are the final payouts:

Raj Patel - $1,272,905

Paul Matteo - $643,275

Antonio Cavezza - $370,370

Fred Goldberg - $233,918

Seth Berger - $175,439

Alan Kessler - $136,452