Ramdin the Victor in Team PokerStars Pro match.

Ramdin the Victor in Team PokerStars Pro match.

Monday, 29 December 2008

To settle the point of who shall be Team PokerStars captain, the 29 members did what they knew best – playing an epic eight-game tournament for the honour of captaincy (as well as $30,000 added by the site to be chopped between the top three players’ favourite charities).

This being a true pros’ match, the 8-game format was used, the rotation encompassing 2-7 triple draw, limit hold ‘em, Omaha hi/lo, razz, stud, stud hi/lo, no-limit hold ‘em and pot-limit Omaha. The game was six-handed with a slow structure suiting the 29 pros, five of whom (including Greg Raymer, Humberto Brenes and Tom McAvoy) exited within the first hour.

The field shrunk to 14 after the second hour and only thirty minutes later we arrived at our six-handed final table after Daniel Negreanu eliminated Alex Kravchenko in 7th place on a pot-limit Omaha hand. The starting chip counts for the final table were as follows:

Seat 1: ChadBrownPRO (6820 in chips)
Seat 2: RaiNKhAN (4092 in chips)
Seat 3: Bill Chen (2984 in chips)
Seat 4: Money800 (17739 in chips)
Seat 5: VictorRamdin (19500 in chips)
Seat 6: KidPoker (6865 in chips)

In the first round of the game, both Bill Chen and Chad Brown were eliminated. Chen was the first to go in 2-7 Triple Draw when he bricked his draw and ended up with the higher (worse) hand, his stack being shipped to Chad Brown. Brown, however, was next to leave as his 9-low was crushed by Ramdin’s 7-low.

Triple draw would also spell the end of Hevad "Rain" Khan, who got in all in on the second draw against Victor Ramdin but failed to make the winning hand.

Chris “Money800” Moneymaker was the next to depart, also at the hand of Ramdin. Playing limit hold ‘em, Moneymaker called Ramdin's button raise from the big blind and they saw a flop of Kc-8s-5s. Both players checked to the turn, which fell the 6h. Moneymaker bet, Ramdin raised and the 2003 WSOP champion moved all-in. Ramdin called and his AK was too strong for Moneymaker’s K7, which didn’t improve.

Moneymaker's elimination earned him $5,000 for his chosen charity and left Victor Ramdin and Daniel Negreanu to duke it out to see who would become team captain. Here's what their chip counts looked like as they began heads-up play:

Seat 5: VictorRamdin (32972 in chips)
Seat 6: KidPoker (25028 in chips)

Their final hand came in stud hi, where Ramdin started off with buried eights and improved to queens up by the river after a raising war with Negreanu. Though Negreanu had made a pair of sevens on fifth street with running flush and straight possibilities as well, he couldn't improve and Ramdin's two pair held up to win him the Team PokerStars Pro Championship and $15,000 to his charity. For Negreanu’s as-always fantastic play he earned $10,000 for his charity.



Tags: Poker News, Ramdin, the, Victor, in, Team, PokerStars, Pro, match.