3-way showdown for $8.55M at World Series of Poker

LAS VEGAS — Eric Buchman was eliminated from the World Series of Poker main event in fourth place Sunday morning, setting up a three-way showdown to determine which two players would face off for the $8.55 million title.

It was the longest main event final table in history, stretching past 14 and a half hours and 274 hands.

Buchman lost most of his chips to 25-year-old French poker professional Antoine Saout to give Saout a large chip lead, then couldn’t survive enough all-in wagers to build back from the hand.

Buchman was finally eliminated from the no-limit Texas Hold ‘em tournament with an ace-five after a king on the turn gave Darvin Moon a pair. Buchman came from behind on an all-in bet against Moon a few hands earlier, but Moon bested Buchman for all his chips to pull near Saout in chips.

“When you get short, you have to gamble,” Buchman said. “I didn’t expect to win. I expected to make it deep.”

Buchman, a 30-year-old professional poker player from Hewlett, N.Y., won $2.5 million for fourth place.

Buchman’s loss left Saout playing against Moon, a 46-year-old self-employed logger from Oakland, Md., and Joe Cada, a 21-year-old poker professional who staged a huge comeback to outlast most of the final table.

Each player left in the final three was guaranteed $3.5 million, but two would emerge from the unusually long card session as competitors destined for a heads-up showdown for the title late Monday night.

Saout nearly eliminated Cada on the next hand when his queens looked to be dominating Cada’s deuces, but a third deuce double’s Cada’s stack and made him the fifth chip leader of the session.

“Destiny, that’s what it is. Destiny,” one of Cada’s hometown supporters from Michigan said.

Saout’s loss tempered a surge that began Saturday afternoon, after he started the final table eighth in chips.

He eliminated Jeff Shulman in fifth place when Shulman gambled his tournament life with pocket sevens against Saout’s ace-nine. Known in poker as a race, the hands had nearly an equal chance of winning against each other.

Saout picked up a nine on the flop and Shulman failed to improve on the turn or river. By then, the players had logged about 10 hours at the table during roughly 250 hands.

One of poker’s most famous faces was bounced from the event about three hours earlier, one of two quick eliminations.

Phil Ivey, a 32-year-old poker professional from Las Vegas, got unlucky against Moon for his last 6.5 million chips. Ivey gambled with an ace-king and found himself ahead of Darvin Moon’s ace-queen, but Moon hit a queen on the flop and Ivey failed to improve.

“It is definitely just about winning, so it’s disappointing I did not win,” Ivey said. “But I am happy with the way I played. I think I made pretty good decisions with the amount of chips that I had, and I think I gave myself as much possibility of winning it as I could.”

Minutes later, Moon was behind again with ace-queen against Steven Begleiter’s pocket queens, but a river ace eliminated Begleiter in sixth place and gave Moon a chip lead.

Begleiter, a 47-year-old former Bear Stearns Cos. executive, won $1.59 million for sixth place. Ivey won $1.4 million for seventh.

“I was one card from being back in the thick of it. I really thought the hand was mine,” Begleiter said. “I’d almost prefer to go out like that — it’s way easier.”

When asked what he planned to do after the final table, Begleiter said: “I want to go somewhere and cry a little bit.”

The rapid-fire eliminations by Moon quickly changed a final table that had developed into a slow grind Saturday after Kevin Schaffel and James Akenhead were eliminated early in the day.

Schaffel, a 52-year-old cash game player from Coral Springs, Fla., was eliminated in eighth place with the game’s best starting hand after he took out London pro James Akenhead in ninth place.

Akenhead delayed his elimination early on by tripling his chips, but he lost most of the stack on two hands to Schaffel. He busted out when his pocket pair of threes couldn’t improve against the pocket nines held by Schaffel.

He took home $1.26 million for ninth place, nothing beyond what each final table player was awarded in July when they made it to the top of a field of 6,494 entrants in the tournament.