Peter Eastgate Crowned WSOP Champion!

Six of the past eight World Champions have all hailed from the USA but this year it wouldn’t be a seventh as heads-up play is to be contested by a 22-year old Dane in Peter Eastgate and a 27-year old Russian in Ivan Demidov.

 

With play due to start at 10pm local time there would be some delay as Erick Lindgren was presented with his 2008 WSOP Player of the Year Award; a custom Harley-Davidson Motorcycle.

 

Starting heads-up play with only 57,725,000 chips in comparison to Eastgate’s 79,500,000, Demidov would take down the first eight of twelve pots to wrestle the chip lead in his favour before taking an unscheduled 5-minute break. However Eastgate wouldn’t sit quietly as he brought things back to even only several hands later before regaining his chip lead after taking down four sizeable pots from Demidov.

 

As both players headed to their first official break Eastgate remained in control holding an 86.3 million chip advantage to Demidov’s 50.5 million. With the break over and 38 hands into heads-up play Eastgate would complete from the button and then call Demidov’s raise to 1.95 million out of the big blind. Demidov would lead for 3.625 million on a flop of and find a call from Eastgate. Both players would check the on the turn and when the fell on the river Demidov announced a bet of 7 million, and before the chips were even in the pot Eastgate made the call tabling to take the pot from Demidov’s . As Eastgate became the first man to tick over the 100 million chip mark Demidov would be left with only 36.6 million in chips.

 

22 hands would pass with chips passing between one another until Tournament Director Jack Effel announced that this final table has just surpassed the 2005 WSOP Main Event final table as the lengthiest. With another 20 hands dealt out Demidov would wrestle some of Eastgate’s strangle-hold as he fought back to 51.6 million versus Eastgate’s 85.3 million in chips.

 

Eastgate would however increase his lead to 110 million when he called Demidov’s 2 million raise from the button. Both players checked the flop and with the landing on the turn Eastgate led for 2.5 million but was met with a re-raise to 8 million. Eastgate called and checked the river of the to Demidov who, after re-checking his cards, threw out a 12 million chip bet which was called by Eastgate. Demidov tabled for another caught bluff while Eastgate tabled for a flush and the 44 million chip pot.

 

With Demidov left with only 27.9 million in chips, he would then slip to a further 19.6 then 16.3 million before another break was called. On return with blinds at 500,000-1,000,000 Eastgate completed from the button and Demidov checked out of the big blind. On a board of Demidov checked and Eastgate led for 1.25 million and Demidov made the call before check-raising to 6 million over Eastgate’s 2 million chip bet when the hits the turn. Eastgate made the call and when the peeled on the river Demidov moved all-in and was snap-called by Eastgate. Demidov tabled for two-pair, but wasn’t enough to match Eastgate holding for the wheel. Demidov rolled out of the main event in 2^nd place earning $5,809,595 for his efforts and a record of final tabling both WSOP and WSOPE Main Events.

 

After 4 months and 39 levels of play, 274 final table hands and 104 hands of heads-up play, 22-year old Dane Peter Eastgate was crowned 2008 World Series of Poker Champion outlasting 6843 of the world’s best poker players and earning $9,152,416 in prize money while breaking Phil Hellmuth’s 19-year old record of youngest main event winner!