Annie Duke outlasts 63 poker pros, becomes heads-up champion

[clevfan]

Annie Duke outlasts 63 poker pros, becomes heads-up champion

Duke defeated Erik Seidel in the finals to win $500,000

By Case Keefer
LAS VEGAS SUN
Sunday, March 7, 2010 | 10:29 p.m.

If there was any debate heading into this weekend about who was the world’s premiere female poker player, it has now vanished.

Annie “The Duchess of Poker” Duke bested a field of 64 players in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship at Caesars Palace to become the first woman ever to win the event in its six-year history. She beat old friend Erik Seidel 3-2 in a best-of-three match to win the first place prize of $500,000.

"I just think it's great to really represent the women," Duke said. "There's some really great women poker players out there."

Destiny seemed to shine down on the 44-year-old Duke all weekend in the single-elimination, bracket-style tournament. She was on the verge of elimination Friday night against former champion Paul Wasicka in the round of 16 when she went all-in with ace-ten against Wasicka’s pocket aces.

An ace came on the flop, which made Wasicka a 99 percent favorite to advance to the next round. But the next two cards were a queen and a king to give Duke an improbable straight and control of the match.

"I can never, ever complain about a bad beat again," Duke said.

Duke steamrolled her competition from there. She got by a resilient Jerry Yang, who won the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event, in the round of eight Sunday morning.

She followed that with a victory against poker pro Dennis Phillips in the final four to set up what she called a “storybook matchup” with Seidel for the title.

Duke has known Seidel since she was a teenager. Seidel’s best friend, poker professional Howard Lederer, is Duke’s brother.

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” Seidel said. “This was my perfect final.”

Seidel, who won $250,000 for second place, didn't sound too disappointed after the match. If anything, Seidel said he felt relieved about his performance.

Seidel had appeared in each of the previous five heads-up national championships and never made it out of the first round.

“I think I was very unlucky for the first five years,” Seidel said. “I’ve gotten a lot of (stuff) for it.”

But Seidel did more than make up for his past failures in 2010 by navigating through a treacherous path to the finals.

He beat last year’s heads-up champion, Huck Seed, in the first round and followed it by knocking out three more Main Event winners — Chris Moneymaker, Peter Eastgate and Scotty Nguyen — to get to the championship.

"I was really happy to see Erik make it this far," Duke said.

Duke also hadn’t found any success in past years of this tournament. She entered this year’s national championship with a 1-5 overall record.

That’s hard to imagine after the way she stormed through the field this year. Duke picked her spots precisely and kept an even keel.

This was best evidenced in her match against Phillips, who was able to fight back to even with Duke after trailing for the majority of the time and surviving an all-in where he held an inferior hand.

Duke’s pocket sevens eventually held up against Phillips' ace-eight for the win. Phillips made the final four in his first appearance at the tournament, good for $125,000, and knocked out legendary pro Doyle Brunson in the round of eight.

“I had a blast,” Phillips said. “I went 4-1, which is not too bad.”

It wasn’t easy for Duke in the finals. She took the first match, when her pair of kings held off Seidel’s spade flush draw when all the chips went in after the flop.

Seidel cruised in the second stanza, where Duke said she was totally outplayed. Despite being down 3-to-1 in chips in the third match, Duke doubled up when her queen-nine of diamonds turned two pair against Seidel’s ace-king of diamonds. A few hands later, Duke’s pocket nines made a straight to beat Seidel’s ace-two.

"I got lucky, but I felt like that was OK," Duke said. "I feel like overall we played really even."

[ChuckyTheGoat]

Props, girl.

[StarnetGypsy]

Originally Posted by ChuckyTheGoat

Props, girl.

truly Chucky, and she definately looks like a winner to me

[Eddylove]

Originally Posted by clevfan

Destiny seemed to shine down on the 44-year-old Duke all weekend in the single-elimination, bracket-style tournament. She was on the verge of elimination Friday night against former champion Paul Wasicka in the round of 16 when she went all-in with ace-ten against Wasicka’s pocket aces.

An ace came on the flop, which made Wasicka a 99 percent favorite to advance to the next round. But the next two cards were a queen and a king to give Duke an improbable straight and control of the match.
"

I never knew that A K Q 10 made a straight. No wonder I have been losing all these years playing poker.

[analyzer]

If the flop was A J x, and she needed KQ to make a straight her odds were roughly:

8/45 x 4/44 = .016

98.4% in Wasicka's favor. I fckn hate that about Hold'em. You can completely out play some donkey, and still get your ass handed to you.

I remember 1 time, I was playing in 2 tournaments simultaneously, on-line. They were both worth about 4k for 1st, one was a $100 buy in with about 70 players, and the other was a $20 rebuy with significantly more players.

I made it to the final table in both tournaments, and was eventually heads up in both. I primarily focused on the 2nd tournament where our stacks were about even, and not as much on the 1st where I had about 200,000 chips, to his 20,000.

That fcker survived 7 all-in situations, where he was behind in all of them, at the time he put all his chips in. The worst was a J 10 6 flop, I have J6, and he had J4. I flop two pair, and my 2nd pair is bigger than his kicker, and it comes running 8's to chop.

I eventually won the 2nd toury, but was upset I didn't pull the dbl with a 10-1 chip lead heading into heads up play.

I don't mind if I'm behind and lose, but when I outplay the guy, and have the mathematical edge, all 7 times, and can't eliminate him, it's really frustrating.

Losing multiple coin flips is one thing, but losing multiple 75%-er's like KK to A-rag, over and over, gets real old.

AA vs A10 off, as I recall is closer to 90%..... I don't have my poker calculator so maybe someone can help me out, is it 87% preflop?

[analyzer]

Like I said, I saw this one 2 weekends ago, live:

Player to my right raises preflop. I fold. Player to my left reraises, and sweats KK with me.

It folds around to player to my right. He calls.

Flop comes K 3 3 with 2 diamonds.

Player to my right checks.

Player with KK has kings full, and bets 1/2 the pot.

Player to my right reraises all in with 10d 9d on his flush draw, and is drawing dead to Qd Jd or running 3's.

Turn and river comes 3, for a board of K 3 3 3 3, chop it up.

Just a sick game sometimes.

[analyzer]

It would have to be an absolute blast, to get such an invite, and be able to play with the "best" players in the world. Or certainly, the most well known players in the world.

How much fun would it be to sit heads up with Phil Helmuth, and put him on tilt? Or be able to say you beat Brunson or Nguyen heads up. If I was going to lose to one of them, and be ok with it, it would have to be Lederer, Duke, Brunson, or Danny Negranu (spl?). I like all of them. Class acts.

[Eddylove]

I will be doing this at the end of March at the PokerStars events at Mohegan. Going to be a great turnout. Playing the Classic next week at Foxwoods also.