WSOP
Erick Lindgren has struggled to stay out the poker news in recent years, but mainly for the wrong reasons. However, he’s back in the limelight for the right reasons after winning his 2nd WSOP bracelet in Event #32 – a 6 handed No Limit Hold’em event. After struggling since his first bracelet in 2008, he’s come into the World Series of Poker off the back of a 2nd place in the WPT Championship in May which was worth over $650,000 and capped off 4 cashes in 2013 with a win which will surely mean a lot to him.
It’s also worth saying some commiserations to Lee Markholt before we run through the action on an (unsurprisingly) aggressive final table, who played very well and ended up getting horribly coolered to lose the all important final pot to get himself back into the match. A professional poker player with 4 WSOP final tables, over $3m in cashes, and a WPT title, this was a very tough final table even for the WSOP especially when you consider Jonathan Little has been a poker book and won two WPTs!
The final table began with a wide range of chip stacks:
1. Erick Lindgren – 2,317,000
2. Lee Markholt – 1,812,00
3. Vasile Buboi – 1,462,000
4. Jonathan Little – 1,039,000
5. Connor Drinan – 748,000
6. Ryan D’Angelo – 370,000
After a number of initial skirmishes moved chips between players then back to where they came from, D’Angelo ended up all in two hands in a row. In the first he added to his dwindling chip stack by defending to Lindgren from his big blind and then checking a flop of AxAx4x. Lindgren made an extremely small continuation bet which D’Angelo shoved all in over, and after a long tank (and possibly some Hollywooding) Lindgren folded.
The very next hand, Drinan (the 2nd shortest stack) raised the button, and D’Angelo pushed all his chips into the middle from the small blind. Drinan was quick to call and turned over A
K to dominate D’Angelo’s K
T. No help from the board meant D’Angelo met an unfortunate end in 6th place, taking home $74,768 for his troubles and the memory of making a WSOP final table.
This elimination evened up the chip stacks, with all 5 players resting between 2,200,000 and 1,100,000 chips. Play was fast and fairly passive post flop, with lots of flops being seen and largely given up to continuation bets. Numerous small pots led up to the elimination of Vasile Buboi who lost two large pots in a row. In the first, he took on Erick Lindgren. Markholt raised, Lindgren called on the button, and Buboi defended his big blind with a 3 bet which garnered absolutely no respect – both Markholt and Lindgren called. A flop of K 7
2 was seen by all 3, and Buboi obviously liked it, leading with a bet of 250,000. Lindgren called, and a blank 2
fell on the turn. Buboi bet again, upping the stakes to 350,000 to play. Lindgren thought for a while, and called again. The 5 didn’t impress Buboi and he checked. Lindgren made a small bet of just 225,000 into the pot which had grown to over 1,000,000, and Buboi quickly gave up his hand, reducing him to the smallest stack at the table.
The very next hand Drinan raised the button, Buboi shoved his remaining stack, and Drinan called to find himself slightly ahead with 8 8 versus A K. A flop of Q J J gave Buboi more outs (a J or a T were also now options) but the board unhelpfully ran out 9 2 to eliminate Buboi for $106,830.
Lindgren’s battle with Buboi had now raised him to clear chip leader with 3 times more chips than shortest stack Little, with Drinan in second after winning the flip. Over the next hour, Little worked hard to slowly grind his short stack up – managing to double it in the 2 hours before the dinner break by winning numerous small pots. The loser of the table was Lee Markholt, who dwindled down to just 760,000 with blinds increasing to 20,000/40,000 with an ante of 5,000 after dinner.
After dinner, things didn’t go any better for Markholt – at least, until he managed to get his 635,000 chips in blind vs blind with Ax9x v K 3. A straight put a smile on Markholt’s face again, tand while he was still shortest stack he looked a lot more comfortable back up to over 30 big blinds. Things got even better very shortly after – a raise from Drinan on the button was 3bet by Markholt, but Drinan wasn’t finished and pushed enough in to put Markholt all in. A snap call was the last thing Drinan wanted to see; his move with Q J had run into Markholt’s beautiful A A and Markholt was back into 2nd in chips, leaving Drinan crippled in his wake.
Drinan didn’t his best to battle back but it just wasn’t to be – shoving the button with his remaining 12 big blinds and a weak K8 offsuit, he ran into Little’s A J and the nut flush on a 5 2 2 4 7 was more than enough to send Drinan home with some regrets and $1576,274.
This was the stage where Lindgren really started to show just why he was a Full Tilt Poker red pro, and why he won that WPT Championship in May. Using his chips as aggressively as possible, he quickly increased his chip stack to over 5,000,000 – leaving Markholt with just under 2,000,000 and Little struggling with under 1,000,000. It was, unsurprisingly, Lindgren who then proceeded to knock out Little in a pot involving all 3 players. Markholt raised the button, Little made a stand in the small blind but wasn’t expecting an instant all-in from Lindgren in the big blind seat. Markholt wisely folded, and Lindgren showed J J. Little’s A 5 still had plenty of equity however, and the first 4 cards running out 7 5 4 2 meant you could see the sweat on Lindgren’s neck (or were the lights just hot?) before the river. A blank K was just the card he wanted to see though, and with Little taking $238,833 for his trobules Lindgren and Markholt sat back down to battle it out for the most coveted trophy in the poker world; a WSOP bracelet.
The heads up lasted over 50 hands and 2 hours, and was a spectacle to watch with action nearly every hand. Lindgren was obviously clear favourite coming into the heads up holding a massive chiplead of 6,150,000 to Markholt’s 1,600,000 which meant the length of the match was even more impressive. The first all in came after 20 hands – Markholt raised the button and Lindgren flat called before check-shoving a T 9 8 board. A snap call from Markholt meant Lindgren knew his K K was in trouble, and it turned out it was in far more trouble than he might have realised – Markholt held J 7 for the flopped straight and Lindgren was unable to hit the runner runner he needed.
With Markholt back up to nearly 2,500,000, the momentum had switched and he kept building. Winning 3 decent sized pots in a row followed by a triple-barrel board where Lindgren folded and Markholt showed the nuts (K on a 4 club, A high board) the gap was down to just 200,000 chips. However, the sign of a great pro is someone who can dig deep in the face of adversity, and that’s just what Lindgren did. Turning up the aggression, and definitely aided hugely by the appearance of the legendary Gavin Smith on the rail, Markholt faced two substantial all in decisions post flop in the space of just 4 hands and let them both go – in the process, his chip stack crumbled from nearly 3,000,000 to just 1,000,000.
It was just a few hands later that the decisive cooler occurred and handed Lindgren the bracelet; limping the button, he raised Markholt’s lead on a board of A J 9. Markholt’s shove was met with an ecstatic reaction by Lindgren who found himself in a situation completely opposite to when he held KK against Markholt’s all in just a couple of hours earlier – hoping to be up against a spade draw or similar, he found his A A was an almost certainty to beat Markholt’s J 9. It was hard not to feel sorry for Markholt, but the $374,960 is sure to soothe his pain.
And what of Erick Lindgren? Another WSOP bracelet, an impressive series already, and possibly more to come. He fought hard in the heads up battle, dominated the table 3 handed, got good hands in the right spots, and got his money in good – it’s hard to see what more he could have done. I very much doubt that’s the last bracelet Erick Lindgren will win, and I’m sure the $606,317 he took home will come in handy too.