Anthony Harb wins WSOP Event 11

A 28-year-old professional poker player named Anthony Harb from Canton Michigan is the latest first time WSOP bracelet winner then 2009 World Series of Poker has produced. Harb collected $569,254 for his first place finish, though admits the win really hasn’t sunk in yet as during play it was all about the bracelet.

In his post match interview Harb commented.

“The gold bracelet means a lot. It means I am here to stay. I made it through this very tough field, against all these pros. I can say that I hung with the best of the best.”

Harb had a good-luck charm while at the table. He used a small back turtle as his card protector during the entire tournament. “I have never used a card protector before and (a friend) gave me this turtle. I really like the concept of the turtle. He is chubby and slow. But when he strikes, he bites hard. He does not win a lot of races, but when he comes out of his shell, he’s dangerous.” Harb said he has a name for his turtle – “This is Pedro. Don’t mess with Pedro,” he said.

Harb also talked about how he generally comes to the WSOP with a one way plane ticket because he’s not sure when he’s going to leave. He spends a lot of time playing against his good friend Justin Scott, who won a WSOP bracelet in 2006, and feels being around good players really helped him improve his own game.

2009 WSOP Event 11 Final Table Coverage

This event was the fifth of eleven events so far that had a final table with no former WSOP bracelet winners. Former bracelet winners cashing in this event included Perry Friedman, Harry Thomas, “Little Man” Michael Sica, Jason Mercier, Kevin Song, “Minneapolis Jim” Meehan, David “the Dragon” Pham, Tom McEvoy, T.J. Cloutier, and Phil Hellmuth.

Coming into the final table here were the chip counts and seat positions, along with a brief bio on each player.

Seat 1: Mike Carlson — 721,000 (MN resident with a handful of four and five figure cashes since 2005)

Seat 2: Jim Geary — 794,000 (second final table of 2009 WSOP, he is a former college chess champion and represented the US at the Scrabble World Championship).

Seat 3: Scott Hall — 496,000 (An online tournament player who started playing during the Moneymaker boom).

Seat 4: Brent Sheirbon — 630,000 (An Oregon player who has cashed in the past two WSOP Main Events).

Seat 5: Adrian Dresel-Velasquez — 826,000 (The Nigerian-born attorney once served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. He was the Assistant Attorney General for the state of Wisconsin in the previous administration.)

Seat 6: Jonathan McGowan — 509,000 (primarily a cash game player, with two previous WSOP cashes)

Seat 7: Anthony Harb — 1,537,000 (event winner described in intro)

Seat 8: Peter Rho — 1,465,000 (Korean-born poker pro from Las Vegas, NV. Rho is a graduate of Duke University who finished second place in the 2009 Aussie Millions Championship.)

Seat 9: Adam Adler — 1,066,000 (CEO of “UltimateCollegeModel.com,” which is the first publicly-traded social networking and modeling company.)

Seat 10: Michael Dyer — 1,839,000 (recreational player from Houston, TX)

And here is how the action unfolded:

Coming into the day there were 25 players remaining and Mike Carlson was the chip leader. As the final table approached he was one of the shorter stacks and eventually needed to settle for being the official final table bubble boy. On his final hand Peter Rho checked a flop of 4s As Jh and Carlson moved all in for 742K. Peter Rho made the call, showing Js Jc for a flopped set. Carlson showed Ks8s for a flush draw. The turn was a blank and the river paired the board sending Carlson to the rail in tenth.

The first official final table player to fall was Brent Sheirbon. He moved in preflop for his final 404K chips with pocket threes and was instacalled by Harb who held AA. Sheirbon collected $59,315 for his ninth place finish.

A few hands later Michael Dyer moved all in preflop and Scott Hall gave him protection when he re-shoved all in. Dyer had Ah 5h to Hall’s Ad Kd. It appeared as it would be a chop as by the turn the board read 3s 10c 3d 10h, but a king on the river sent Hall out in eighth place.

Despite eliminating the eighth place finisher, Scott Hall found himself heading to the rail in seventh place to collect $76,390 after colliding with Peter Rho. On this hand Rho raised to 105K from the cutoff and Hall countered with a reraise to 360K from the big blind. Rho came over the top for 1.5 million and Hall called all in. The nearly three-million-chip pot was a coinflip of Ad Kc for Hall against the Qc Qh of Rho. The flop fell 4s3hQd to give Rho a set of queens and when the the turn fell the 3s, Hall was drawing dead.

Adrian Dresel-Velasquez finished in sixth place worth $92,867 after pushing all in with KQ and getting called by Adler who held pocket tens. He was followed to the rail by Jonathan McGowan whose pocket queens ran into Harb’s pocket kings. McGowan picked up $116,833 for his fifth place finish.

It took over two hours to get play down to three handed. This finally occurred Harb bet enough to put Adler all in and Adler made the call with Kd Qd only to find himself well behind to Harb’s Ah Qh. The board missed both players and Adler was to the rail to collect $161,768 for his forth place finish.

Jim Geary had been on the verge of eliminations many times at the final table, but so far had managed to hang on. The fight came to and end when he pushed from the button with Ac 8d and Harb snap called from the big blind with Ad Ks. Geary scored $230,670 for his third place finish.

When heads up play began, Harb had 5.1 million chips and Rho was right behind him with 4.8 million. Heads up play only lasted 30 minutes with Harb winning several sizeable pots. The final of these saw Rho move all in with the board reading 9h 8d Kh Jc only to get snap-called by Harb. Rho showed 9d 8s for bottom two pair and Harb showed Qs10d for the nut straight. The river fell the 4c sealed the deal as Anthony Harb became the champion, receiving both the gold bracelet and the top prize money of $569,199 and Peter Rho received no bracelet, but did score $350,019 in cash.