Kuzmin rains on Carter’s parade
The Russian pro Alexander Kuzmin pushed Allen Carter out of contention to be the first player to win the same World Poker Tour (WPT) event twice at this year’s Southern Poker Championship (SPC).
As was widely reported, with this poker news source being no exception, Thursday night’s final table at the SPC held at the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi brought perhaps more than its fair share of attention with Carter being tipped to make history as the first player to win the same WPT event in history. Having taken down the 2009 edition of the tournament and arriving at the final table only marginally behind the chip leader Kuzmin – with these first two players each holding almost as much as the rest of the finalists combined – Carter had a chance for greater fame.
Solid early play from Carter, perhaps a result of the media frenzy (why not?, we work hard) created in the poker press, took him up and away and left Kuzmin back in third place for not long into the six-man stand-off that was the SPT final table of 2011 (OK, laying it on a bit thick now). But after the eliminations of Ryan Hughes, Pat Mahoney and Shannon Shorr for $89,375, $113,208 and $144,985 respectively, Carter found himself holding only a hand of J-9 unsuited but also going all-in against Kuzmin for 1.7 million. Kuzmin, holding A-Q in a pair of shiny, matching red diamond-shaped suits, that would eventually be Carter’s downfall and the smashing of his dream. A 10 of diamonds on the river provided the Russian with a very tidy flush.
Carter didn’t claim his place in WPT history this time, but he did have the highly pleasurable experience of taking $218,471 home with him.
Kuzmin took the heads up against Leif Force with a very weak K-4 on an empty board. The WPT Southern Poker Championship title, a Beau Rivage bracelet, the $601,469 first prize (the largest win of his career after decent WSOP final table appearances in 2010) and a place at the $25,000 buy-in WPT World Championship at the end of the season all very welcome pickings. Force’s second place earned him $315,790.
The next stop in the WPT calendar is the special Venice, Italy, almost-novelty new addition that will run from 3 to 8 of February. There are two more WPT events in the second month of this year: the WPT Celebrity Invitational (19-20) and the L.A. Poker Classic (25-1 March) will both be held at Commerce Casino in California.
Tags:
Alexander Kuzmin, Allen Carter, Southern Poker Championship, SPC, WPT, WSOP
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