Allen Carter Wins Southern Poker Championship

January 18 2009, Amy Calistri

Allen "AawwNutz" Carter was the last player standing at the Sourthern Poker Championship, hosted at Biloxi's Beau Rivage Casino. The 2009 Southern Poker Championship will be broadcast on Fox Sports Net and is part of the Full Tilt Poker-sponsored World Poker Tour's Season VII offerings.

The Southern Poker Championship Main Event began with 283 entries, up eight percent over last year's attendance, yielding a total prize pool of over $2.6 million. The Beau Rivage also kicked in an additional $24,219 to the top payout so that the winner could walk away with the proverbial cool million.

Tournament participants included a number of well known players, including Hoyt Corkins, Bill Edler, Hevad Khan, Layne Flack, Ted Forrest, Barry Greenstein, Bernie Lee, Erick Lindgren, Men "the Master" Nguyen, David "the Dragon" Pham, Mark Seif, Hilbert Shirey, David Singer, Gavin Smith, Brandon Cantu, Brent Carter, "Miami John" Cernuto, Scott Clements, T.J. Cloutier, and others. The defending champion was Brett Faustman, who was eliminated on the first day.

The final table was set with the elimination of Vanessa Rousso in seventh place, when her A-K lost the race against Soheil Shamseddin's pocket tens. This was the second time Rousso ended up as a WPT final-table bubble girl, having finished in seventh place at the 2006 WPT World Championship.

At the start of final-table play, Soheil Shamseddin had almost a 2-to-1 chip advantage over his nearest competitor, Allen Carter. Shamseddin's chip count, however, was a moving target, as his aggressive play had him everywhere from first place to sixth within the first four hours of play. Shamseddin ultimately finished third. Carter had almost a 5-to-3 chip advantage over Bobby Suer when heads-up play began, and won the title 32 hands later. Suer got his last chips in as a favorite, but saw Carter connect with a wheel straight on the final hand.

The final-table results:

1. Allen Carter -- $1,000,000

2. Bobby Suer -- $501,028

3. Soheil Shamseddin -- $263,725

4. Hilbert Shirey -- $184,607

5. Tyler Smith -- $134,500

6. Chuck Kim -- $105,490

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