Monday, April 28, 2008

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Chiu defeats Hansen for championship win

David Chiu

By Sarah Polson

The World Poker Tour World Championship seemed like a sure win for Gus Hansen when he finally worked his way through the 545 entrants in the tournament to face David Chiu heads-up. But Chiu proved that anything is possible in heads-up and took the title right out from under Hansen's nose.

Gus Hansen had entered the televised final table with a nearly $2 million chip lead over his nearest competitor. He proceeded to eliminate Jeff King, Tommy Le and Cory Carroll from the tournament before finally eliminating John Roveto as well.

He had a hefty 6-1 chip lead over David Chiu when they entered heads-up play, but Chiu didn't waste any time battling back.

He doubled through Hansen with pocket fives against the Great Dane's pocket deuces. Then Chiu took down a few more key hands to bring the chip counts to almost even.

The Great Dane misses another WPT win.

Hansen saw his chip lead whittled away and then all of his chips were Chiu's when they got all-in with Hansen holding T-8 against Chiu's A-9.

Hansen had raised pre-flop to $750,000 to start the hand's action. Chiu flat-called on the button, and they saw a flop of A-T-8.

Chiu checked to Hansen, who bet out another $900,000. Chiu called again to bring a 5 on the turn. This time Chiu led the betting with $1.2 million and Hansen moved all-in for $8.675 million more.

Chiu counted out the call, and after a minute or two of thinking, he announced the call to make it official and turned up his A-9 for top pair with the flush draw. Hansen turned up his T-8 for two pair.

Chiu still had plenty of outs though. He could catch an ace, nine, five or spade to give him the win.

As luck would have it for the four-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, the river brought him an A, and Hansen narrowly missed adding a fourth World Poker Tour win to his list of accomplishments.

The televised final-table results are as follows:

Place	Name	Prize
1st	David Chiu	$3,389,140
2nd	Gus Hansen	$1,714,800
3rd	John Roveto	$923,355
4th	Cory Carroll	$593,645
5th	Tommy Le	$395,725
6th	Jeff King	$263,815

Along with his biggest tournament payday to date, Chiu also gets a WPT bracelet and the buy-in into the $25,000 WPT Season 7 World Championship.

Chiu's victory, his first major win in nearly three years, adds to the momentum that Full Tilt Poker pros have established already this year. Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Jennifer Harman, Huck Seed and David Pham have all registered wins as members of Team Full Tilt in 2008.

"David Chiu has been one of the most respected tournament players on the circuit," said Lederer. "With this win, the television viewing public will finally get to see what poker players have known for a long time; he is one of best in the game."

For more details about how the tournament played out, visit the Live Tournaments section.

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