Soren Turkewitsch wins the first ever North American Poker Championship!
Soren Turkewitsch wins the first ever North American Poker Championship! The final Table of the North American Championship, the WPT's inaugural event in Canada, was well represented by the home team, so to speak. Five Canadian-born players fought it out with one Indonesian-born American poker pro.
Here's what the final table looked like before the televised action got underway.
Jason Sagle held the chip lead with $2,970,000. He was in seat #3. John Lam wasn't far behind with $2,285,000. He sat in seat #4. Soren Turkewitsch - say that 3 times fast, I dare you - took seat #5 and held $1,690,000 in chips. James "KrazyKanuck" Worth, the UltimateBet poker pro, was in seat #1 with $1,305,000 chips. Marc Karam played in seat #2 and brought $1,290,000 to the final table. John Juanda, one of the most talented poker pros in the world today - and a fixture at FullTiltPoker.net , was the short stack with only $425,000. He plunked himself down in seat #6.
Final table play started shortly after 5pm EDT. The blinds were $15,000/$30,000 and there was a $3,000 ante. There wasn't much excitement at first. However, when John Lam's full house beat out Jason Sagle's trip jacks, Lam wrested the chip lead away.
Marc Karam was the first one eliminated from the final table only 22 hands into it. His jacks were no match against Turkewitsch's pocket rockets. Juanda tried to build up his stack. He moved all-in no less than eleven times with NO CALLERS. Seems the other players didn't want to give the talented Mr. Juanda any chance to get a healthy stack back.
Juanda finally got called with his AQ. Turkewitsch's pocket nines held up and he finished in 5th place. About an hour later, Jim "KrazyKanuck" Worth busted out. Interestingly enough, he was also holding an AQ.
Once the play was three-handed, Turkewitsch found himself in the chip lead. He also found that lead quickly slip away with a series of bad breaks and lost pots. However, his luck would turn around when John Lam called Soren's AK all-in. Lam held an AJ and never improved. Turkewitsch reclaimed his chip lead - and crippled Lam in the process. Lam became the third place finisher not too long after that.
This left James Sagle and Soren Turkewitsch to battle it out for WPT North American Championship. Turkewitsch had over 6 mil in chips at this point and Sagle was an almost 2-1 underdog with a little over 3.5 mil in chips.
It wasn't an easy heads up match, however. Sagle doubled up with pocket fours against Turkewitsch's AQ. Sagle looked about ready to take the title home when he called with an A9 against Turkewitsch's A3. Turkewitsch got lucky with a wheel on the turn. Sagle didn't go away into the night easily, but Turkewitsch won the day when his pocket deuce got paired on the river.
Turkewitsch, an automobile factory employee who hails from Ontario, took home over $1.3 million for his effort.
It's fitting that a Canadian won the first WPT event in Canada. Congrats, Soren Turkewitsch - and to all the players who made the final table an event to remember!