Pair the Board

All right, we’re back in three-handed action.

Before we get going though, the three men have disappeared for an unscheduled break as soon as Buchman was eliminated in 4th place. And when you’ve covered poker tournaments for a while, a little silent alarm goes off when the last few players just stand up and walk away from the table. I have nothing to support this theory aside from my tingling blogger senses, but I think Cada, Moon, and Saout talked numbers sometime near sunrise on Sunday morning. It was about a half-hour delay, and the three men returned from the side of the stage opposite the normal break area. I’m pretty sure Harrah’s doesn’t allow deal making though. And I don’t think JohnnyBax would have let Cada chop. But I also suspect the players can do what they want with their money. So I’m not sure. Just speculation.

Anyhow, the instantaneous fireworks that ensued doesn’t hurt my theory. On the first hand back from break, shit exploded. Here’s how I wrote it up in the live blog on PokerNews:

Hand #272 – Instant All In

We’ve got fireworks right away!

There is a dead button for this hand, the first hand back from break. To begin with, Joe Cada comes in raising to 2.55 million from the small blind. Saout then announces a three-bet to 7.3 million from the big, and action comes right back to Cada. After a minute or two, he announces, “All in,” and Saout instantly makes the call with his towering stack! With Cada now at risk for his tournament life, the cards are turned up:

Cada: 
Saout: 

With a long pause building the suspense, the crowd again comes to life as the two opposing halves of the room yell back and forth at each other. Alternating cries of “Deuce!” and “Queen!” bombard the stage as the dealer burns a card and runs the flop:



Ecstatic celebration comes from Camp Cada as their man finds his deuce, taking an improbable and commanding lead in the hand. The turn and river come  and  respectively, and Saout can not re-improve to tally the knockout.

Instead of being forced to watch the other two men bag up for the night, Cada is now the chip leader with 78,600,000, all courtesy of that two-out deuce, the most important card of Cada’s young career!

For the second time at the marathon final table, Cada had spiked his two-out set to earn a life-saving double. This latest installment of the miracle baby card gave Cada the chip lead and sent Saout and his fans reeling. Cada played a big pot against Moon on the following hand, three-betting his way to a bigger lead with more than 90 million chips. Three hands later, Cada and Saout would flip for that chip lead, Saout all in for more than 40 million. Here’s another one that I’ll quote, since I happen to like how I called the action.

Antoine Saout Eliminated in 3rd Place ($3,479,670)

Hand #276 - 

Joe Cada has the button. He opens the pot to 2.5 million, and with it comes the final betting actions of the night. Antoine Saout makes an all-in re-raise behind him, enough to quickly fold Darvin Moon and his big blind. Cada, though, wastes little time making the call with his covering stack, and we’ve got a serious situation on our hands. Saout is now the one at risk of elimination, and he will soon find out that he’s flipping a coin for, oh, a couple million dollars:

Cada: 
Saout: 

“Ace in the window! Ace in the window!” plead Cada’s posse. Saout’s fans are murmuring in French, clearly a bit nervous for their countryman.

The spectators are punchy and tired and well-lubricated with alcohol, and the noise is awfully loud considering the relatively small crowd still left here in the wee hours. As the tension mounts, the dealer finally runs out the flop:  . That’s safe for the at-risk Saout, two cards from his double up.

The turn is safe too; the  changes nothing. The river, though, changes quite a bit indeed. Like a bolt of thunder, the  strikes the board and Cada is mobbed by a throng of yellow-shirted fans as he takes the pot with his pair of kings. Saout’s side of the room falls absolutely silent as their man can only shake his head and shake the hands of the two left standing before walking off the stage.

With Antoint Saout exiting in 3rd place, the final heads-up pairing is set for Monday. Saout officially earns $3,479,670 for his remarkable efforts here in the Main Event, but his bid for poker glory has fallen just two places short.

Joe Cada was swarmed by JohnnyBax and his yellow-shirted posse. Oh, his dad was there too, though you’d have thought Bax was his closest living relative. Darvin Moon was mobbed by toothless, unshaven hippies waving confederate flags, and they peeled out of the parking lot in their lifted Ford Bronco, hurling bottles of Budweiser at Cada’s Honda Civic. Antoine Saout was seen lurking near the Civic with a crowbar, a taser, and a roll of duct tape.

Okay, Cada and Moon actually bagged up their chips around breakfast time with the sun already peeking its head above the Vegas skyline. Everything was civil; no fisticuffs broke out when they came together to shake hands and wish each other a clean fight. It was a marathon day of poker that left each of them standing as the only man in between the other man and $8.55 million.