Yorky Pud

Jake Cody has become only the third person in the history of poker to win a coveted Triple Crown of titles after he won the $25,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship event at the World Series of Poker. Cody joins Gavin Griffin and Roland De Wolfe in an elite group of players who have won an EPT, WPT and WSOP title, though the 22-year old is the youngest to do so and did it in the quickest time, 18-months after winning the first part of the crown.

Back in January 2010 Cody won the EPT Deauville Main Event and managed to follow that up a few months later with an outright win at WPT London. Now, in only his second-ever WSOP event he has won the most-sought after piece of poker jewellery, a WSOP bracelet. Cody had planned to play many events at last year's WSOP but had bad feeling about travelling and when his taxi, which was taking him to the airport for his flight to Las Vegas, hit a deer he took it as an omen and cancelled his planned schedule. He did fly out for the 2010 WSOP Main Event but failed to make it to the money, needless to say he is looking forward to this year's series with more positivity!

Cody's route to the final was far from easy, with him having to take care of Brandon Adams in his opening match and then 2010 WSOP Player of the Year, Frank Kassela in the following round. His task did not become any easier when he faced Dani Stern in the third round, nor when he locked horns with Jonathan Jaffe in round four. Anthony Guetti was the next to feel the wrath of Cody, which set up an exciting semi-final encounter with Gus Hansen, a player who had won 12 consecutive WSOP Heads Up matches, including the £10,000 Heads-Up High Roller event at last year's World Series of Poker Europe.

It turned out to be unlucky number 13 for the man known as “The Great Dane” as he was completely annihilated by the former psychology student from Rochdale. Instead of a best-of-three format this year's event was played as a triple chance, not that it mattered to Cody as he used just one bullet to take care of Hansen, who used up all three of his live. The Dane simply did not have an answer for Cody's aggressive and many different styles of play that he threw at him.

Hansen's departure set up a mouth-watering final match against Yevgeniy Timoshenko, better known as “Jovial Gent” in online poker circles. A 40-strong crowd was railing Cody throughout the Hansen match and they were even more vocal in the Timoshenko tie. They turned the final table into a scene that would not have been out of place at a Premiership football match and some of the chants brought smiles to the faces of both players on several occasions. The rowdy rail must have been spurring Cody on as he walked all over Timoshenko and stacked him three times in less than three hours. Both players opted to sit with 1,600,000 each and have a further 3,200,000 in racks beside them. Just as in the Hansen match Cody would not need his though his opponent would go through all three bullets. 

Timoshenko lost his first stack around an hour into play when he raised preflop and then called a Cody shove with Ac4d. Cody's 6c6s held the advantage and the sixes stayed in front as the board ran out 3s-Kc-9s-9c-8h to make it one-nil to the well-supported Brit. The Ukraine-born American lost his second bullet an hour later when Cody made it 245,000 to play from the button (blinds now 60,000/120,000), Timoshenko shoved and Cody called, turning over Ad3h which was up against JcTs. Cody held a slight advantage preflop and this was extended as the flop came down Ks-Kc-4h. His lead was extended further with the arrival of the 7s on the turn and when the As fell on the river it was 2-0 to Cody and Timoshenko reloaded one last time.

With the blinds being so high Timoshenko's last reload left him quite short-stacked and Cody used this to his advantage by constantly raising and re-raising his opponent, putting him under maximum pressure. The final hand came two hours 45 minutes after they had begun and saw Timoshenko limp, Cody move all in and Timoshenko quickly call. Cody's Kc9c would need some help against the Ac5s of Timoshenko and it arrived as the door card was the Kh, followed by Qd and 4h. The turn was the 6h and when the river was the 4d Timoshenko was eliminated from the tournament and an emotional Cody stood and smiled as his friends cheered “Triple Crown! Triple Crown!” at him. This latest win was worth $851,192 and takes the young Brit's lifetime live tournament winnings past the $2,600,000 mark.