The eleventh stop of the World Poker Tour Season 8 entitled “Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic” came to an end last Saturday. It offered the first ever WPT title to Daniel Alaei.
Daniel Alaei is a professional poker player from Sta. Fe Springs. He has six money finishes and one final table. This is his first title, the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic that netted him the first prize winning of $1,428,430. He toppled over more than three hundred players, many of which are WSOP bracelet winners themselves including the tour’s namesake Doyle Brunson himself who was eliminated on the third day of the tour.
The six players who entered the final table on Saturday, December 19 were the following:
Ranked in terms of finishes:
• Daniel Alaei
• Josh Areih
• Faraz Jaka
• Shawn Buchanan
• Scotty Nguyen
• Steve O’Dwyer
Many poker professional are there in the game to cheer for Steve O’Dwyer. While he was not a popular pro, he has been an online professional poker player for a long time already. Thus, his friends want to be there at the final table to cheer him on and to support the biggest leap in his career.
However, his time on the tour is cut short when his A-6 of diamonds ran into Scotty Nguyen’s pocket jacks. This is because when the flop came, it was a jack-high offering a set of jacks to Nguyen. The ace on the turn provided O’Dwyer with some hope if the river will turn out to be an ace. Unfortunately, it was a four that came out of the river and then, Nguyen’s set of jacks prevailed. This game ended the final table race for Steve O’Dwyer.
The exit of Scotty Nguyen is another story on the final table of the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. He contributed to providing more chips to the then chip leader, Faraz Jaka.
After Josh Areih raised, Nguyen shoved over. Jaka, who has all the chips to wager on moved all-in, Areih folded. Nguyen continued with his pocket nines. Unfortunately, Jaka was holding on to pocket kings. The board came with A-J-8-2-8, which made Jaka scoop the pot giving him 7,050,000 chips entering hand No. 105.
After this, it was Shawn Buchanan’s turn to be eliminated as the 4th place winner with cash prize of $333,302 at Hand No. 109 of the final day.
He is holding on to K-8 hole cards but his opponent, Alaei is holding on to A-K. The board comes out as 9-7-3-9-J. The board did not offer any improvement to the players and thus the advantage of the hole cards held by Alaei led Buchanan to the exits.
The third to be eliminated was Faraz Jaka who won the third Prize money worth $571,374 at Hand No. 122.
Faraz Jaka entered the hand with the lowest chip count of 2,605,000. He is holding on to an A-6 against pocket kings of Alaei. He moved all in pre-flop hoping to stay alive. Unfortunately, the board comes out as K-10-5-8-4, which developed a set of kings for Alaei. This made Faraz end his run for the title in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic.
The heads up table started with a 12,990,000 chip count for Josh Arieh while Daniel Alaei only has about half of it or a chip count of 6,780,000.
Thirty-one hands after the heads up game started, Daniel Alaei is holding on to 10-8 against the pocket sevens of the chip leader, Josh Areih. The flop came 10-5-2 giving Alaei advantage with pair of tens. The turn card is a six and the river is an eight. This game Daniel the first title with two pairs and Josh Arieh settle for the second place with $952,290 cash prize.
The next stop of the WPT Season 8 will be on January 24, 2010 entitled “Southern Poker Championship” to be held at the Beau Rivage, Biloxi, Mississippi.
We will follow the games there as well, so hold on and keep coming back in the site.
