Yorky Pud

Poker players are known for going on so-called heaters where they seemingly cannot do anything wrong at the felt. One player who is certainly on the mother of all heaters at the moment is Erik Seidel. The 51-year old poker pro has already won more than $4,000,000 this year alone and currently sits atop of the Hendon Mob's all-time money listings.

Seidel has already won eight World Series of Poker bracelets and one World Poker Tour gong and it looked as if he was going to make it two WPT Main Events but he narrowly missed out at the Hollywood Poker Open, finishing second out of 97 runners for a score of $155,103, which pushes him ever closer to the $15,000,000 earnings mark!

Going into the final table of six, Seidel found himself in third place, his 645,000 chips just slightly behind the 654,500 of Mike Scarborough but way behind the 1,169,000 of William Reynolds. It only took three hands befor the table lost a player and it was a real cooler of a hand. With blinds at 2,500/5,000/500a, Reynolds raised to 11,000 from the cutoff and only Ali Eslami, in the big blind, made the call. The flop came down Jc-7c-7d and both players checked but when the As arrived on the turn, Eslami bet 13,500, Reynolds raised to 36,000 and then insta-called when Eslami moved al in. Eslami turned over 9h7h for trip nines but Reynolds could beat that as he had flopped a full house with JsJd. The river was the Kc and Eslami was eliminated.

Four hands later and Andy Whetstone was sent to the rail by Scarborough and 21 hands after that Tom Marchese, who last year went on a similar yet less lucrative heater as Seidel is riding now, busted out also. Marchese's exit hand was another full of drama, his money going in preflop with AsKh against the TdTh of Reynolds. The flop came down Ac-Jc-Ts improving Marchese to top pair but Reynolds to a set but the turn changed everything as the Qh made Marchese a straight. But the drama was not over as the river was the Qs and the pairing of the board gave Reynolds a wining full house and resigned Marchese to a fourth place finish!

The flurry of eliminations ended there though and it took almost six hours until the next player headed for the rail and that unwanted honour went to Reynolds, who had taken several hits to his stack which forced him to three-bet all in over a Scarborough raise with AdTd only to find himself dominated by AcJh. No three outer on the board and the 2010 PCA High Roller winner busted out.

This left Seidel to try and overcome a 601,000 to 2,336,000 chip disadvantage to Scarborough but it proved a task to hard even for the most on-form player on the planet. Twelve hands into the heads-up encounter Scarborough made it 62,000 to play (blinds 12,000/24,000) and Seidel moved all in with his Ad9d. Scarbrough made the call with JhTh and it was off to the races. It was a rather short-lived race though as the flop came down Tc-9s7h improving Scarborough to top pair, which went even further in front when the 8s on the river turned his hand into a straight. The Td on the river failed to alter anything and with that Seidel was eliminated and Scarborough became a WPT Champion!

Next stop on the WPT circuit is the Seminole Hard Rock Showdown, followed by the WPT World Championship and the WPT World Championship Super High Roller.

Final table payouts

1st: Mike Scarborough - $273,664
2nd: Erik Seidel - $155,103
3rd: William Reynolds - $110,788
4th: Tom Marchese - $77,551
5th: Andy Whetstone - $62,041
6th: Ali Eslami - $50,962