Erik Seidel(credit: Full Tilt Poker)
Erik Seidel entered the final table of the World Poker Tour’s Foxwoods Poker Classic with a solid chip lead. The 8-time WSOP bracelet winner had never won a WPT title. Ted Forrest, another seasoned pro, was looking to take another WPT event. (He won the 2007 Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament previously.) Unfortunately for Forrest, he got his money in with the worst of it, not once but twice. The first time, his pocket nines went up against the kings of Andrew Barta – and lost. Then, he went all-in for his tournament life with pocket hooks and reeled in by Robert Richardson’s aces in the hole.
Forrest claimed more than $100,000 for his sixth place finish.
Adam Katz, who began the day with more than 2.3 million chips, also suffered with a sharp reversal of fortune. The resident of Orlando, Florida, left the competition in fifth. Richardson, who had never made a final table before, took the remainder of Katz’ chips and followed that up with the rest of Frank Cieri’s stack to boot. Cieri, who also cashed in a preliminary event at this Foxwood’s series, received over $200,000, his biggest cash to date.
Three-handed play lasted long enough to become a WPT record-breaker. Barta, Seidel and Richardson traded chips for six hours. Seidel took Barta out and went into the heads-up match against Richardson in overdrive. Three hands later, Seidel was hoisting the championship trophy over his head as the winner of the 2008 WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic.
These are the final results:
1) Erik Seidel - $992,890
2) Robert Richardson - $558,792
3) Andrew Barta - $281,011
4) Frank Cieri - $200,261
5) Adam Katz - $151,811
6) Ted Forrest - $103,360
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