After mounting an impressive comeback to take the chip lead early in their heads-up contest, Amanda Musumeci saw the title taken from her courtesy of two especially brutal beats.

First, with momentum on her side after a flurry of wins to begin heads-up play, Musumeci finessed Kinney into committing the rest of his 3.7 million stack before the flop holding just against her . The flop would not cooperate, however, coming to put Kinney out in front with a pair of eights. The turn came to give Musumeci an open-ended straight draw - and a total of fourteen outs to take down the tournament - but the river came to improve Kinney's hand rather than her own.

Just three hands later and it was all over for Musumeci, as she open-shoved for her last 2 million or so holding . Kinney held an ace as well with his , and Musumeci's superior kicker looked to be the difference, especially after there were no fours to be found on the flop.

When the turn came Kinney added a gutshot straight draw to his repertoire of outs, and now he needed to spike any four or five to claim the crown.

River:

Musumeci could only watch as the deck denied her the win, and she headed off to the payout desk to collect the the $17,214 awaiting her. With the runner-up finish Musumeci inched ever closer to the coveted $1 million mark in live tournament earnings, although considering the small cashes not recorded by the major databases, she may have just crossed that milestone off the list tonight.

Tags: Amanda MusumeciJames Kinney