Hand #217: On the last hand of heads up, Cliff Josephy raised to 60,000 from the button. Evan Silverstein raised all in. Josephy asked for a count, then made the call for 680,000 total.
Josephy:
Silverstein:
The flop was huge for Silverstein, making him the favorite. According to the PokerNews Odds Calculator Silverstein was a 66% favorite to win the hand. The on the turn was not one of those outs though, and Silverstein was still looking to catch up. It was the on the river that sealed the deal and gave the victory to Josephy.
Event #9, the $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout, began with 477 players. Ten players made it to Day 3 with a chance to claim a World Series of Poker gold bracelet. It wan an impressive bunch that included four bracelet winners, but only one would emerge from the tournament with three single-table wins. That man was Cliff Josephy, now the proud owner of two WSOP bracelets (the first coming in 2005 in a $1,500 Stud tournament for $192,150).
Each final table participant began with a similar chip stack of about 71 big blinds to begin the final table. Despite jumping out to an early lead, Bulgarian Simeon Naydenov was the first to fall. After he doubled up David "Bakes" Baker on Hand #20, Naydenov fell on Hand #34 when he lost a race against Evan Silverstein. The next player to fall was Ryan Hughes when he lost a coin flip against Chris Klodnicki 34 hands later to exit in ninth place.
In a five-hand span, Josephy dispatched of Alessandro Longobardi and Tim West in fifth and fourth place, respectively to enter the dinner break with 65% of the chips.
Heads-up play began with Josephy holding a slight lead over Silverstein and 46 hands later, Josephy sealed the deal and captured his second WSOP bracelet.
We hope you enjoyed our hand-for-hand coverage of this final table, and urge you to follow our coverage for the remainder of the summer as more bracelets are awarded. For now, good night from Las Vegas!