Everybody playing in a basement and in online poker tournament dreams of it, but the final table of the World Series Of Poker’s Main Event requires more than luck and a few good hands.  Endurance and perseverence is the name of the game.  It will take years, even decades of playing to get good enough to bust into the final ten, and then it’ll take fantastic gameplay to be one of the last two standing.  The 2009 WSOP had an unsurprising, fairly standard ending, but it’s still worth looking at as an example of how these things end.

Peter Eastgate was the tournament’s chip leader, with $120m in chips on his side of the table with Russia’s Ivan Demidov facing him off.  Eastgate’s dominating lead meant he’d have to be extremely stupid and/or unlucky to lose the tournament, but crazier things have happened.  Holding Ad5s, Peter limped in for the first time in hours with $500k.  Ivan checked with 42h, hoping for some action on the flop.

The flop, however, did not agree with him: AdKs3h.  Ivan had a pair, but Peter had a wheel draw.  Demidov checked and Eastgate responded with a $1.25m bet, which was called.  The turn hit: 4s, which was the worst possible card in the deck for Ivan.  This completed Eastgate’s straight, but it gave Ivan two pair, a hand that was was impossible to get away from under the circumstances.  Demidov checked and Eastgate bet out $2,000,000.  Ivan raised the bets to $6 and Peter called, pretty much nailing the trap door closed for the Russian.

The river was 7s, which was nothing to either of them and Ivan was the first to act and, thinking his two pair had sealed the deal, went all-in.  Peter, of course, called, and turned his cards over.  Ivan Demidov came in second with $5.8m as his reward (nothing to sneeze at, certainly) and Peter Westgate was now $9,000,000 richer and

When the cards were flipped Ivan was knocked out in 2nd, with $5.8 million as his reward, and 22 year old Peter Eastgate was the latest WSOP champion, $9 million richer, and the youngest winner of the WSOP main event in history.  Eastgate may be young, but he’s got a lot of play, both offline and on, to his name, and can serve as an inspiration to every player who’s getting tired of the grind.