It has been the month of a lifetime at the World Series of Poker for Frank Kasella, who earlier this week won the $2,500 Seven-Card Razz event, earning thereby his second bracelet of the series and making him the first double-bracelet winner of 2010.
Poker players from around the globe flock to Las Vegas each year to compete in the World Series of Poker, and it is the dream of each and every one of these players to take down an event and thereby win the corresponding bracelet. Earlier in the series, Frank Kasella became one of the lucky few to realize this dream, winning the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Championship for his first career bracelet, after entering the tournament purely on a whim following his elimination from a different event. Little did he know he would then go on to have a roller-coaster ride in the $2,500 Seven-Card Razz event slightly later in the series.
Having barely survived Day One, Kasella entered the second day of play with the fairly severe disadvantage of being 105th in chips of the 105 remaining players; dead last. Over the course of the second day, however, he buckled down and managed to grind himself back a stack, closing the day 11th in chips of the remaining 15, and clearly in much better stead than he had been the night before.
On the final day of play things took a turn for the worse for Kasella and, while he managed to outlast seasoned pros such as Jennifer Harmen, his chip stack was dwindling and he was the clear short-stack of the last remaining four players. His hopes of a second series win were quickly shrinking. At a time like this poker players have no choice but to hope for a run of good cards to pull them through and bring them back from the brink of elimination. Kasella certainly got his series of fortunate events, but they started, most bizarrely, not with a run of good cards.
The playing floor plunged into darkness and, after brief confusion, it was announced that there had been a power cut. The backup generators clicked into action and various lights started to flicker back on, but the lighting in the dark corner where the final table was taking place was still poor. This lead the players to be relocated to the main final table stage, the exact location of Kasella’s earlier victory in the Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Championship. Here Kasella got his second wind and the run of cards he so sorely needed. Tripling up quickly, Kasella was then able to eliminate fourth-place getter Vladmir Shchemelov and, when third-place getter Melville Lewis was also knocked out, Kasella headed into heads up play against his one remaining opponent, Maxwell Troy.
It had been a long and dragging final day, with many players wanting to wrap up the event so that they would have time to register for the larger $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. At one point a frustrated Maxwell Troy, who would go on to get second place, said that he didn’t even care about the potential bracelet, remarking, “I’d sell mine to get this over with and play the H.O.R.S.E.” The heads-up battle was no exception to this theme of arduous play, as Kasella relentlessly wore down Troy’s stack and eventually got all the chips in the middle, his seven-five low just enough to beat out Troy’s seven-six low, and thus secure him his second bracelet of the series as well as the $214,085 in first-place prize money.
It was also a repeat for Troy, although a less satisfactory one, who had already placed second in an earlier tournament in the series. “I’ll always be the bridesmaid,” he laughed.
Overall an outstanding achievement for Frank Kasella who is very proud of his double-bracement achievement, saying happily afterwards, “It feels great, obviously.” As well as the prize money and second bracelet, the results of this tournament pushed him to the top of the WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard, where he is currently tied for first with John Juanda.
The official final table results are as follows:
1. Frank Kassela : $214,085
2. Maxwell Troy : $132,229
3. Melville Lewis: $85,284
4. Vladimir Schemelev: $61,795
5. Mikko Pispala: $45,433
6. Jennifer Harman: $33,890
7. Stuart Rutter: $25,646
8. Chris Bjorin: $19,686
9. Dee Tiller: $15,329