Depahs wins SUNDAY NIGHT H.O.R.S.E.

The January 3rd edition of Sunday Night H.O.R.S.E. was the first installment of the new year. Last week, an outage caused a cancellation of the event, so the H.O.R.S.E. players were itching to saddle up. 144 players turned out for the event, just falling short of the guarantee.
Paul Sexton, Jon Turner, and Scott Fischman were among the Full Tilt Poker red pros in this event. The only red pro to make the money was Diego Cordovez, who finished in 15th. The only other name of note to make the cash, but fall short of the final table was Mike “GoLeafsGoEh” Leah, who finished in 14th.

With nine players remaining, both lakichma15 and NNNobodYYY both were eliminated during the same hand at hand for hand play. As a result, the final table was nine handed and both players tied for 8th. These were the final 7 players:

depahs

Dr_Bump

viperucla

papalock

Mike McGuire

RJMoney

KillTheHorse

Papalock was the first player eliminated from this final table. He survived an earlier hand after rivering a flush. However, this time he was all-in on sixth street during Stud with split tens. Dr_Bump made the call with split kings and neither player improved. Papalock finished in 7th place.

Dr_Bump was involved in a big hand with viperucla during stud 8 and was crippled down to just under 6,000 in chip after the hand. He was then whittled down to 2,612 and had the remainder of his stack in on the bring-in during stud 8. Both viperucla and Mike McGuire called and then checked it to the river. At the river viperucla showed three sixes and both opponents mucked. Dr_Bump was eliminated in 6th.

Down to his last 14,000, Mike McGuire put in his stack on 3rd street during Stud 8 with 7-8-9. KillTheHorse called with buried sixes with a five. By sixth street, KillTheHorse had improved to fives full but had a sweat as McGuire had eights up and could still outdraw on the river. The river only improved McGuire to nines up and he was out in 5th place.

KillTheHorse had an up and down Holdem round. He started with around 45,000 and was up over to over 75,000 before dropping back to around 41,000. The last of his stack went in on the turn with a board of 4s-Jc-Ks-6d. Depahs made the call. KillTheHorse showed Kh-8d for top pair, but was behind to the Jh-6h of depahs. The river fell the 7h and there were three.

RJMoney was down to just 26,036 and decided to cap the betting with depahs pre-flop during Texas Holdem. This resulted in RJMoney being all-in with Jc-3h against the Ad-2c of depahs. A flop of 7s-5s-4s gave both players a straight draw. The turn 9s helped neither player, but a chop was now possible. The river fell the 10c and RJMoney was out in 3rd.

Heads-up play started with depahs holding a 337,772 to 94,228 lead over viperucla. Viperucla was up to 110,228 before the final hand went down between the two. Betting was capped between the two on the turn with the board 5h-4s-As-7d. The river fell the Qh and depahs bet 16,000. Viperucla only had 14,228 and called all-in. Depahs showed Ah-9s for top pair and viperucla mucked. Depahs is this week’s champion.

Depahs was among the chip leaders early on at this final table and just steadily built chips from there. With four players left, he took the chip lead and never looked back. In addition to the $9,000 first place prize, he also walks away as the first Sunday Night H.O.R.S.E. champion of 2010. Congratulations.