WPT Foxwoods

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Jon over Jon: Little Wins WPT Foxwoods

It took an epic heads-up battle that broke the record for both the longest final table and longest mano-a-mano match in World Poker Tour history to get there, but Jonathan Little cemented his status as one of the greatest in the game by winning the WPT Season 7 Foxwoods World Poker Finals just before 4 a.m. EST Wednesday morning.

When things got rolling just after 5 p.m. Tuesday, it didn't look like it would take that long, and it certainly didn't appear Little would be the one taking home the $1.1 million first-place prize the final six were shooting for.

Although he came in neck and neck with seven-time WPT final tablist David Pham for second in chips to online phenom and 2008 WSOP Heads-Up fourth-place finisher Jonathan "Iftarii" Jaffe, Little's early inactivity and a Mike Matusow double actually saw his stock drop to the point where he was the short stack.

But after Little had chipped up to pull himself out of the cellar, it was Matusow who would actually go out sixth. In his fourth final table now without a win, The Mouth was in fine form verbally spewing all over the joint before he shipped it facing a Little raise with A J.

Mouth finally shut!

Little made the call with nines and as Mike danced his way to the cage to take home $124,048 in sixth-place money, Little was back among the leaders with $3.5 million in chips.

Little then took the outright lead in a hand he would later say was the key in getting him heads-up. Jack Schanbacher open-shoved his last $700k and David Pham made the call. Little looked down at queens and came over the top for all his chips.

He had The Dragon covered and although it left him short, he stepped out of the way. The queens held against Schanbacher's suited connectors and while he hit the bricks fifth, Little was suddenly sitting on $6 million in chips.

As expected, David Pham was the next to go when his deuces couldn't get past New Yorker Charlie Marchese's two overs, and the final table was half over after just two levels of play on the day.

Seven times, still no charms.

Three-handed started with Little in the lead, start-of-day chip leader Jaffe not far off the pace and Marchese bringing up the rear.

But instead of staying out of each other's way, the two Jonathans traded chips back and forth more than a few times.

Then Little looked down at two queens again and after he opened with a raise, Marchese shipped it in with A J. Although he turned a flush draw, the river bricked for Charlie and he made his exit in third.

Heads-up between two men with the same first name started just before 11 p.m. EST, with Jaffe holding only a slight edge thanks to the three-handed chip trading they'd been involved in. As deep as they were and as skilled as they are, no one really expected it to be over quickly.

His name is my name too.

No one expected it to go almost five hours, though, shattering every hand number record the WPT keeps track of with no fewer than nine lead changes. But it did.

Little took the lead right away and looked to be rolling over Jaffe before he doubled up to take the lead right back. Jaffe then took a stranglehold on the match before Little hit two pair to double and get close again.

Little crept into the lead, but then Jaffe flopped quads and got paid off to take a 2-1 advantage. They tossed the lead back and forth another couple of times before Jaffe found himself with a 5-1 chip lead, but Little would still not go away.

He got it in bad with jack-ten suited against Jaffe's  A 3, flopped a pair and faded Jaffe's nut flush draw to get it back to 2-1, then got it in even worse with king-five off, only to runner-runner four-flush against Jaffe's pair of eights.

Two-time winnar!

But this time it was a lead Little would not give up. Just a few hands after the record for the longest final table in WPT history fell, hand 275 practically played itself with Jaffe holding A T to Little's A Q.

The board brought some chop possibilities, but the poker gods saw fit to hand the Season 6 WPT Player of the Year his second WPT title and poker immortality instead.

It was a long day to end it all, but alas, another classic WPT final table was in the books and another week sans fresh air, sunlight and edible food in this Connecticut woodlot they call Foxwoods was over.

PL.com will be back though; somehow we just know the poker gods have at least that in store for us down the road.