WSOP
566 people took to the felt in Event #38, a 4-handed No Limit Holdem Event that really requires some skill to compete in. With a $2,500 buy-in the prize pool ballooned to $1,287,650 with almost $350,000 going to the winner!
Like many other WSOP events, this one had an unofficial final table where 5 players would play on a single table until the official 4 player final table was reached. The man who just missed out on the unofficial final table was Daniel Park.
In his last hand Daniel fell victim to a mistimed re-steal attempt as he shoved all in for 122,000 over a button open from well know tournament pro John Juanda. Unfortunately for Daniel, he got a call from Jared Jaffee on the big blind and Juanda folded. Daniel was in about as good a situation as he could hope for as he had only 3 concrete out with his Q 
J 
against Jared’s A 
J . However, the T 2 9 flop gave Daniel a real fighting chance, but it was not mean to be this time as the 4 and 5 rolled out, sending Daniel Park packing in 6th place and a nice consolation price of $54,770.
With that elimination the unofficial final table was set:
Seat 1 Justin Oliver
Seat 2 John Juanda
Seat 3 Jared Jaffee
Seat 4 Nick Schwarmann
Seat 5 David Pham
What happened next led to the shortest final table in this year’s WSOP series and perhaps the shortest final table in WSOP history. It all started when Nick Schwarmann opened the action to 32,000 from the button. David Pham called from the small blind and John Juanda came along for the ride from the big blind. A Q 
3 4 flop did not look too threatening to blow out of proportion, but not this time. Pham and Juanda checked and Nick bet out another 43,000 with David Pham making another call. After some thought Juanda moved all in and was quickly called by Nick. After some more thought and calculation from David Pham he also elected to call, knowing that if he did get knocked out along with Juanda, he would finish higher because of the chip counts. Surprisingly enough, it was John Juanda who was in the lead with just Q 2 . Nick Schwarmann was trailing him with A 7 for the nut flush draw and David Pham was in very bad shape with K J for the second nut flush draw. The 5 was a great sight on the turn for Juanda, however, the 3 on the river sealed both his and David Pham’s fate in this tournament as both of them were knocked out. The prior chip stack calculations worked in Pham’s favor as Juanda officially finished 5th for $54,770 and David finished 4th for $89,736. With that the official final table was set, with just 3 players!
Nick Schwarmann was rolling nicely after the double elimination and with just 19 hands into the final table another big hand took place. Nick opened the action to 35,000 from the big blind and was called by Jared Jaffee from the big blind. The flop came 7 6 Q and Jarred checked back to Nick. Another raise from Nick was met with a re-raise to 90,000, which in turn was met with an all-in by Nick who had Jarred covered by a mile. Jarred called for his final chips and revealed Q J for top pair, while Nick showed another flush draw with T 5 . A Q on the turn increased Jarred’s chances substantially, but once again the river came through for Nick as the 9 rolled out, sending Jarred Jaffee to the rail in 3rd place, earning him a solid $129,447.
And just like that, with 19 hands in the final table the play was now in heads up mode, perhaps also an all-time record for the WSOP. Not only that, but Nick Schwarmann was now holding a massive lead over Justin Oliver who did not see much action since there were still two tables running, while the last 3 eliminations were scored by Nick.
With that in mind it looked like this might the quickest final table ever, but it turned out that Justin had something to say about that. Many hours and a 120 hands later, Justin managed to fight his way back from an enormous deficit and was now actually in the lead. Nick just couldn’t get any traction after his great run coming up to the heads up match and was losing big pot after big pot.
Finally it came down to a pot which was 3-bet and 4-bet pre-flop. On a 5 9 8 flop both players elected to check, as they did when the K on the turn rolled out. A 6 on the river, however, prompted Nick to go all-in and Justin called. Nick mistimed his bluff badly showing J T while Justin Oliver showed K 4 for top pair. With that Nick Schwarmann was gone in 2nd place, blowing a massive chip lead and costing himself a WSOP bracelet. Of course he probably wasn’t completely disappointed as the consolation prize was $191,434!
The newly crowned WSOP bracelet winner this time was Justin Oliver though, coming back in a great performance to win it all, including a life changing $309,071!
Justin Oliver
Final table payouts:
1 Justin Oliver $309,071
2 Nick Schwarmann $191,434
3 Jared Jaffee $129,447
4 David Pham $89,736