A SURPRISE RESURRECTION (Update)

3 July 2009

Ex-professional hockey player enjoying a lucrative World Series
 

The 40th Anniversary World Series of Poker is turning out to be a lucrative ride for former professional hockey player and Vancouver poker pro, Greg 'FBT' Mueller. Having cashed for $53 885 in Event 6 on June 1st, he went on to take the winner's prize of $460 838 and his first bracelet in Event 33 on June 15th (see previous owa report) and has just won Event 50.

Winning Event 50 - the $1 500 buy-in Limit Hold’em Shootout, gave Mueller his second WSOP bracelet and added $194 854 to his career winnings, bringing the total close to $2 million in over 30 cashes. But to achieve this he had to best an entry field of 571 players, many of them top-flight pros, and all looking for the biggest portion of the $779 024 prize pool. He also had to prevail in a tense almost two hour heads up with another WSOP bracelet holder making the most of a successful WSOP run this year - Holland's Marc Naalden.

The final table in the event was populated by Joep van den Bijgaart, David Williams, Marc Naalden, Jose Barbero, Greg Mueller, Matthew Sterling, Millie Shiu and Flaminio Malaguti.

Millie Shiu, the only woman player at the talented table, set the heads up between Mueller and Naalden when she was eliminated in third place for a payday of $77 138 just before 9pm on Sunday night.

Starting the heads up some 20 minutes later, Mueller was on almost 2.9 millon in chips, comfortably ahead of his rival, who held 705 000. It was not to be a foregone conclusion however, as the talented Dutchman fought back vigorously and the minutes ticked by. In the end, it took Mueller almost two hours to put Naalden away at 11.33pm, ending the match and sending the Dutch player home with a check for $120 614.

Mueller said afterwards that Naalden was the one player on the final table that he knew would be a tough nut to crack. "What made it really tough was I had to beat the one player I was most concerned about heads-up to win it," he said. "Even coming into the final table I felt Marc Naalden would be my toughest competition."

The event marked the eighth final WSOP table at which Mueller has player over the years, giving him invaluable experience and strengthening his game.

Online Casino News Courtesy of Infopowa

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