The hand that changed history

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/11/2011 (5103 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Although the Manitoba Lotteries poker championship has been over for a few weeks, I wasn’t able to post the results as they were nowhere to be found until now. Here is a link with all the results: http://www.canadapoker.com/2011-october-manitoba-poker-open-results-and-recap/

Sorry it took so long.

Congratulations to everyone who participated and a special thanks to all the support staff who helped make the tourneys successful. Obviously without them we wouldn’t be able to have such events, so thank you for all the hard work put in by everyone involved.

The WSOP final table was played out this week and a new world champion has been crowned: 22-year-old Pius Heinz of Germany. Heinz battled Martin Stazko, a 35-year-old who proved he was more than capable of winning the event himself. I’m sure the $5.4-million consolation prize for finishing second will not allow him to be too upset.

Ben Lamb, who was one of my five picks to win the main event this year, fell just a little bit short as he was knocked out in third place. Lamb was definitely the best player at the table but in poker anything can happen. In every tournament you enter, there are going to be a few key hands that will either make you or break you. This year’s final table was the longest heads-up battle in WSOP main event history, and it was pretty fun to watch as it was broadcast live on TV. Both players traded the chip lead several times, but there is one hand that I think changed poker history forever.

The hand started with Stazko in a commanding chip lead as he had nearly three times the chips Heinz had. Heinz raised and Stazko called. The flop was J 5 4 with two hearts. Stazko check-raised Heinz and after some deliberation, Heinz moved all in. Stazko went into the tank and eventually folded. Their hands were revealed and shockingly, Stazko folded Q 6 of hearts! Heinz had 10 5 for second pair.

The thing that was shocking to me was that Stazko was in a position to gamble. If he called and lost, they would be roughly even in chips. Now, I have never played heads up for the WSOP championship, but why would he check-raise him there if he was going to fold to a shove? Given the circumstances, this was a great time to get his money in and try to knock out Heinz and become champion. Most of the time in this spot, Stazko would have 12 outs twice, so why the heck would he check-raise and fold potentially a 12-out draw? I guess only he knows why he did that, but in the end, it cost him the chance to be the next WSOP champion.

Your success in poker is going to be directly related to the number of mistakes you make. In order to make money over the long run we must limit our mistakes. Unfortunately for Stazko, the timing for such a huge blunder will probably haunt him for a very long time. Actually it will probably haunt him forever.