December 19, 2007
By Jon Marier

Eugene Katchalov came into the final table of the 2007 WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic as the chip leader and by the time the even finished he held all the chips and $2,482,605 first place prize. The prize pool was an impressive $9,661,200, after 626 players put up $15,000 for the buy-in, making it one of the richest tournaments in the WPT’s line-up.

The event, hosted at the spectacular Bellagio saw many top pro’s at the top of the leader board throughout the tournament. Phil Ivey, regarded as many to be the best players in the game today held the chip lead for the first two days of play but busted out just short of the money bubble on day 3. Heading into the second to last day of play Daniel Negreanu held the chip lead but lost it and was knocked out in 14^th place. Other top pro’s making it to the final two tables included Todd Brunson, Erick Lindgren, and David “Devilfish” Ulliott. Devilfish was the only top pro to make it to the 6-handed televised final table.

The final table was in itself record breaking as it concluded after just 53 hands. The two chip-leaders battled early on to try to seize control over the majority of chips in play. On the third hand of final table, Katchalov and Jordan Rich, who came into the table second in chips, played a hand that crippled Rich. Even though neither the turn nor river was seen Rich committed the majority of his stack to an aggressive re-raise on the flop. Rich never recovered and was eliminated in 5^th place about a dozen hands later.

With over 70% of the chips in play Katchalov now had complete control of the table. He rolled over the rest of his opponents on the table and on hand #40 heads-up play between Katchalov and 75 year old tournament novice Ted Kearly began. By the 50^th hand Katchalov had a 9-1 chip advantage over Kearly. On hand 53 Katchalov called Kearlys all-in re-raise with J♥T♦. Kearly showed K♣J♠ and had a commanding lead in the hand. The advantage was short lived as the flop brought Katchalov a Ten. The turn only improved Katchalov’s hand while the river was a blank that brought no help to Kearly.

All told Katchalov took home more then $2.5 million dollars since he receives a buy-in to the WPT championship, a value of $25,000, to be held at the Bellagio in the spring of 2008. Kearly also earned a nice pay day taking home $1,252,640.