Thursday, June 04, 2009

Steve Sung wins the "Stimulus Event"

The $1,000 event or the stimulus event was available live stream, if you have not watched poker this way you should give it a shot, it gives you a much better representation of how things work at a final table.  Event #4 at the World Series of Poker shattered all kinds of records and could have shattered a lot more.  The WSOP decided to cap the entrants at 6,000 people but clearly many more would have registered.  I realize it would be a logistical nightmare but they should really figure out how to do this uncapped, $1,000 is a lot of money, if someone is willing to pony it up for a shot to say they played the World Series of Poker I think they should be allowed to do so.  Luckily the people in charge do seem to listen, so I would imagine this would be addressed. The final nine bested a tremendously large field and when the dust settled it looked like a show down between Steve Sung and Dan Heimiller.  Steve Sung is likely the best player most people do not know which made him the favorite but Dan is nobodies slouch either, with nearly 2.5 million in lifetime earnings he could only be listed as a slight underdog to Steve.

The Dan Heimiller versus Steve Sung matchup did not disappoint

Early on it looked like Dan would be content folding his way to a high money finish while Steve took the approach of mixing it up.  Neither strategy really worked, Steve became the short stack and had to survive an all in for 95% of his chips with AQ vs 55.  Once Dan realized it was time to get off the bench he limped with 44 only to slow play his set and lost to the runner runner K 2 of Pete Vilandos.  In Pete's defense at no point should he have been out of the pot, Dan checked him into the call and then checked the flop, the turn brought a three flush on the board, which would have made Pete a King high flush, that is what he was actually drawing to, he just got lucky to win the 2.5 million chip pot with the gutter ball.  This is wear the live streaming was just awesome, Dan lost it and began cursing, he later gained composure but it really showed you the mental aspect of the game much more than the highly edited version that ESPN serves up. Quite a bit after that Steve and Dan played a pot that basically determined Dan's evening.  They were both near the top of the leaderboard Steve out of position called and led after a very scary flop of Ad 8d 10s, Dan called in position.  The Jc hit the turn and this is where the fireworks happened.  Steve led at the pot and Dan re-raised big, looking at the telecast Dan seemed very confident; Steve not so much.  As was the case most of the night Steve was very deliberate and put on a tell clinic, every time you thought you had a read on him he did the opposite.  When Steve went all in Dan no longer seemed confident and it did not take him very long to muck his hand.

Steve Steamrolls the field

Steve Sung never looked back, the people that were calling him earlier cracked under the pressure of money and spotlight and it was very clear that this was his title to lose. While it would be easy to look at a specific hand or two where Steve got lucky that really is not the true story.  Steve came in with a plan to be aggressive, at no point did he change that plan, if anything his timing was just off.  Early on their were a few players trying to play sheriff but as the sheriff's became short stacked the game got a lot easier. Also it would be easy to look at this tournament and say that Dan got unlucky.  He certainly did but Dan's style and Steve's style are really defining this years WSOP.  Dan chose to play fewer pots with better hands, no matter how good you are this approach means that you need to show down some winners.  Steve's approach on the other hand was to play a lot of pots and re-raise small, early on it did not work but in the end "small ball" poker prevailed.

As far as we have come we still have a long way to go

On a side note I would like to say that it is ridiculous that Steve Sung is not better known.  He went into this final table with virtually no sponsorships.  Steve represents three groups of people that should be important to poker.  For one he is of Asian descent and historically poker, especially online poker, has ignored Asian players.  He is also young, which is obviously a demographic poker should like. From my standpoint though Steve is an internet player.  Now I realize that most people would not categorize him as that any longer since he has had great offline success but make no mistake about it, Steve is a beast online.  Every time you see a sponsored pro making a slur about some internet donkey (trust me there are a ton), they are essentially spitting at the people that pay their bills.  For me online poker is sadly missing an opportunity to promote these up and coming superstars.  I realize it is better than it used to be but it is still sorely lacking.

Tags: WSOP   Articles   Steve   Sung   Dan   Heimiller   event   4  

2 responses to Steve Sung wins the "Stimulus Event"