David Chiu Wins 2008 WPT World Championship
April 28th, 2008
At The Bellagio on Saturday night, against all the odds David Chiu made himself a part of poker history by taking home the WPT World Championships. After an unbelievable heads-up performance against chip leader-at-the-time Gus Hansen, David Chiu fought back to claim the title and a $3.39 million payday.
At the start of the final table the chip stacks were as follows:
Gus Hansen - 8,570,000
Cory Carroll - 6,670,000
David Chiu - 6,050,000
John Roveto - 2,720,000
Tommy Le - 1,950,000
Jeff King - 1,300,000
First to leave the final table was Jeff King who came out second to Gus Hansen early on. Tommy Le was next to go, as Hansen took advantage of his bigger chip stacks to dominate the proceedings. Cory Carroll didn’t last much longer, with Hansen having busted out his third player of the final table.
With a chip stack of over $20 million, Hansen then eliminated John Roveto leaving heads-up play between himself and David Chiu after only 22 hands of the final table. Chiu, in fact, had only played 2 hands so far, while Hansen had eliminated all four of the other finalists.
Going into heads-up play Hansen had five times as many chips as Chiu, but some dogged display from Chiu saw the gap begin to close. Before long the chips were evenly stacked and after winning a few monster pots, Chiu began to take control of the chip stacks before finally nailing Hansen. A few hands after Chiu had won a huge $12 million pot, Hansen called ‘all-in’ and Chiu went with it.
The final hand of the WPT Season 6 was finally upon us, and Chiu would be the one celebrating the biggest win of his career when the river card was turned. Hansen had won many of his big pots during the tournament on favourable river cards but this time, his luck ran out.
Gus Hansen missed out on what could have been his fourth WPT title, while David Chiu takes home $3.39 million, a WPT bracelet, and entry to next season’s WPT World Championship.
WPT Season 7 starts afresh in July with the 2008 WPT Spanish Championship in Barcelona.
2008 WPT World Championship Final Standing:
David Chiu - $3,389,140
Gus Hansen - $1,714,800
John Roveto - $923,355
Cory Carroll - $593,645
Tommy Le - $395,725
Jeff King - $263,815
