Swede success for Jacobson

This article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2015 issue of World Gaming magazine.

With the second running of WSOP APAC quickly followed by the long-awaited November Nine in Las Vegas, it was a busy few months for the World Series of Poker to end an eventful 2014.

Although he didn’t garner anywhere near the attention of Jorryt van Hoof, the overall chip leader, or Mark Newhouse with his second consecutive WSOP Main Event final table, word on the street as the 2014 November Nine gathered in Las Vegas was to keep an eye on Sweden’s Martin Jacobson.

Starting the final table second last in chips with 14.9 million, the problem for Jacobson was that he first needed to survive long enough and then build a stack big enough to let his skills come into play. Such a surge looked unlikely early on as he slipped below 10 million, but after gradually crawling his way back and seeing a handful of his rivals sent to the rail, two huge hands against Billy Pappas and Will Tonking saw him rocket towards the top of the leaderboard and ultimately victory in poker’s most prestigious event.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s retrace the key moments of the 2014 WSOP. With 65 bracelets on offer this time around, there was plenty to talk about over the course of almost two months of events, with the Big One for One Drop returning for the second time and the US$1,500 Millionaire Maker attracting the largest ever single day starting field of 4,722 as well as the second largest WSOP field of all time with 7,977.

The Big One for One Drop proved a particularly interesting affair. Despite the WSOP increasing the number of entries available from 48 to 56, only 42 players stumped up the US$1 million buy-in – six fewer than in 2012 – however the tournament soon hit the headlines when eventual champion Daniel Colman refused all interview requests despite winning a mammoth US$15.3 million.

His actions caused quite a stir in the poker industry with accusations he was acting like a “petulant child”, although he later released a statement in which he outlined his reasons for the media snub – namely his frustrations at the “evils” of the poker industry as a whole.

Still, the WSOP has always been about the Main Event and 2014 was a special one as it celebrated 10 years since moving from Binion’s Horseshoe to the Rio. With that in mind, organizers announced that the winner of the 2014 Main Event would be guaranteed US$10 million – the second biggest winner’s purse after Jamie Gold’s US$12 million prize in 2006.

The added incentive worked well enough too with 6,683 players taking their seats over the course of three Day 1 flights – the most since 2011 and the fifth biggest Main Event field of all time.

With 693 players making the money, including WGM CEO Andrew W Scott, an interesting side note was that for the first time since 2002 no former Main Event champion managed to cash although there were plenty of other big names remaining once the money bubble had burst. Phil Ivey, Phil Galfond, Michael Binger, Maria Ho, Jeff Madsen and Dan Smith all survived the bubble with some lasting longer than others, however as play reached Day 7 and the final table neared all eyes were on one man – Mark Newhouse – who was looking to make the November Nine for the second year running.

Having finished ninth in 2013, Newhouse soon created history when he busted Luis Velador on the final table bubble to head to the November Nine sitting third in chips and with a great chance to improve on his previous year’s result. The American tournament pro wasn’t the first man to have done so, but he was certainly the first in the modern era where Main Event fields have risen from a few hundred players to thousands.

Prior to Newhouse’s achievement, the last man to make back to back WSOP Main Event final tables was Dan Harrington in 2003 and 2004 who did so in fields numbering 839 and 2,576 respectively. Newhouse did it against fields of 6,352 and 6,683, with the odds of achieving such an incredible feat calculated to be 524,558 to 1!

Joining Newhouse in the November Nine were the highly respected albeit short-stacked Jacobson, foosball champion Billy Pappas and chip leader Jorryt van Hoof – all looking to make a run at the US$10 million top prize.

When the November Nine returned to the Rio on 10 November it was Newhouse attracting most of the attention in his pursuit of a fairytale result, but after promising in the lead-up that he would at least better his ninth-place finish in 2013 the unthinkable happened.

On hand #56 of the final table, having seen little go his way during the early stages, Newhouse went to battle holding pocket 10s with Will Tonking and his pocket Qs and when the dust had settled the crowd favorite was sent to the rail in ninth for the second year in a row!

Jacobson, though, was quietly going about the business of building a competitive stack and once he had chips to play with proceeded to make his presence felt – crushing the hopes of Pappas and Tonking in two huge all-in clashes and heading into the final day’s play against van Hoof and Felix Stephensen with momentum on his side.

He soon used that momentum to end the run of van Hoof, who had held the chip lead throughout most of the final table, and entered heads up play with a near 3 to 1 advantage over Stephensen. Not wasting any time, the money soon went in with the title on the line and Jacobson in great shape holding TT against the Norwegian’s A9. The T93 flop sealed the deal and Sweden celebrated its first ever WSOP Main Event champion.

It proved to be a busy time for the WSOP, with the second running of WSOP Asia-Pacific in Melbourne just a few weeks before the November Nine. The 2014 series boasted 10 bracelet events with notable winners including Jeff Lisandro in the AU$1,650 PLO for his sixth career bracelet and George Danzer in the AU$5,000 8-Game Mix – his third bracelet of 2014 cementing the 2014 WSOP Player of the Year award.

However, as always it was the Main Event that everyone wanted to win following Daniel Negreanu’s memorable success at the inaugural WSOP APAC a year earlier. A total of 329 players took part in this year’s event – a significant drop on the 405 entrants in 2013 – although it was a strong final table of six left to contest the crown with the likes of two-time bracelet winner Frank Kassela and England’s Jack Salter among the contenders.

In the end though, American Scott Davies completed his impressive summer in style by claiming the AU$850,136 top prize. Davies had already cashed in eight WSOP events in 2014 including a final table finish so it was with great relief that he won his first bracelet in the final WSOP event of the year.