Yorky Pud

Erik Seidel is on the mother of all heaters at the moment and it seems to have continued to the $100,000 Super High Roller being spread by the World Poker Tour at the Bellagio, Las Vegas, Nevada where he finds himself heads-up against Erick “E-Dog” Lindgren for the $1,092,780 first place prize.

A rather impressive 29 players paid the huge $100,000 entry fee, which surprised even the organisers as they were only expecting around half that number participating, and by the end of the first day only 17 had chips remaining in their stack. Day 1 casualties included Daniel “jungleman12” Cates, Antanas “Tony G” Guoga and Thomas Marchese.

Day 2 saw a flurry of early eliminations, in fact seven players were eliminated in the first two hours which prompted the tournament director to merge the two tables into one ten-handed table. Within four hands the players has a little more space to stretch out in when Rick Salomon got into a raising war with Seidel on a Kc-3c-3h flop whilst holding AhKh. Of course “Seiborg” was sat there with Ad3d for by far the best hand and when the turn and river were the 9h and Tc resepectively the tournament was down to the final nine players.

The 27th hand of the final table will always be fondly remembered by Daniel Negreanu as he made his first-ever royal flush. With blinds at 8,000/16,000/2,000a Negreanu opened with a bet of 36,000 from the small blind and Seidel came along for the ride. Both players checked the Kh-Qh-Jh flop but Negreanu came out betting 55,000 when the Th landed on the turn. Seidel called and both players saw the 8s hit the river. Negreanu bet a little smaller this time, 52,000, and Seidel called. “I have a royal flush,” exclaimed Negreanu, “It is my first one ever. Seriously.” before he turned over Ah9h causing Seidel to muck.

Negreanu then busted Sam Trickett in eighth place before Seidel took care of Randy Dorfman in seventh place when the latter called an all in bet with pocket jacks, which held against Dorfman's eights. Then came one of the biggest money bubbles in tournament history and it was Cory Katz who was the unfortunate soul to burst it. On hand 108 of the final table the action folded to Vivek Rajkumar in the small blind and he wasted no time in moving all in against his short-stacked opponent. Katz snap-called and turned over AsQs which was nicely in front of Rajkumar's Ks2d. And it stayed ahead as the board ran out Th-8h-4c-5h but a cruel 2h on the river was enough to ship the pot to Rajkumar and Katz exited the table one place short of picking up $224,160.

Shortly after Katz's demise Justin Bonomo headed for the rail after being eliminated in fifth place by Lindgren but then it took almost three hours for the next bust out to occur and when it did it was a real bad beat. With blinds now 25,000/50,000/5,000a Rajkumar opened to 125,000 from under the gun and when the action folded to Lindgren in the bib blind he made it 400,000 to play. Rajkumar, also known as “Pysduck” put in a further raise, this one to 760,000 only to see Lindgren move all in. Rajkumar instantly called off his remaining 2,300,000 and looked on course for a double-up as his AsAh was way ahead of the Jd9s of Lindgren and it stayed that was as the flop came down 6d-3c-2d but the turn and river were the 9d and Js giving Lindgren a most unlikely winning hand and sent a devistated Rajkumar to the rail, albeit with $336,240 to console himself with.

Another two hours past and it was Negreanu who felt the wrath of Lindgren to exit stage left in third place. Negreanu, who only decided to enter the tournament at the last minute, three-bet shoved over Lindgren's opening raise of 160,000 and when “E-Dog” called it was a typical race scenario, Lindgren holding Ah6h against his Canadian opponent's 4s4h. The very first card on the flop was an ace and when the final board ran out Ac-Kh-3d-9c-7h Negreanu was eliminated in fourth place, a finish worth $448,320.

This left Seidel and Lindgren heads-up with the latter holding a narrow 6,295,000 to 5,305,000 lead. Seidel managed to edge in front to a 7,120,000 to 4,480,000 lead but when the the 20th level of play came to an end the tournament director gave the players the choice of finishing the match or returning tomorrow (today) at 1230pm Las Vegas time. The duo decided they would rather complete the match after some sleep so the tournament was paused for a final time.

When the pair return to the felt later today they will do so knowing they will pick up no less than $700,500 for their efforts and are only one elimination away from the $1,092,780 first place prize.