Yesterday, the WSOPE London High Roller Event's semi-finals were played. Gus Hansen (Denmark) played against Andrew Feldman (UK), while Collopy (USA) battled Ram Vaswani (UK). It was 2 quite long (but kind of thrilling) heads-up matches the small crowd at Casino Empire in London got to watch. It ended up being Gus Hansen and Jim Collopy who won their matches and made it to the final heads-up. This meant that a native wouldn't win the tournament.
After a short break, Hansen and Collopy sat down at the poker table again to play the final (best of three matches) - a final that would last nearly 8 hours and still end up in a tie.
Gus Hansen won the first match, which took nearly 4 hours to complete. Hansen continued playing well in the second match, and after 1 hour of play he had a 2-1 chip lead, and about an hour later he increased his lead even more. Collopy needed to double up quickly before Gus Hansen's lead became to great. It didn't take long before Collopy and Hansen were all in. Gus Hansen flipped over 2 kings on the table and Collopy showed A-Q. Collopy basically had 3 outs at this point and needed some help from the poker gods. Bam! An ace! Even though Gus Hansen still had a quite big lead, he looked a bit frustrated and irritated.
After this, Collopy played fantastic poker and overtook the lead. Everything came to an end not long after Collopy was in the lead. Hansen was dealt Q-Q and Collopy 9-9. Both players announced that they were all in and Gus Hansen looked quite relived to see that he was up against 2 outs. But once again the poker gods were on Collopy's side as a 9 landed on the flop. Turn and river was to no help for the Great Dane and it was 1-1 in matches.
Due to the late hour and the expectation that the decisive third match might run several more hours, play was suspended.
The two finalist will return to Casino at the Empire today at noon and continue the battle. The winner will get £288,409, plus the coveted WSOP gold bracelet (neither of them have one since before). Ladies and gentlemen, this will be a heads-up to remember!
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