Much will be said about Ben Lamb’s remarkable victory in Event #42 of the 2011 World Series of Poker and rightly so as he beat a star-studded crowd of 361 entrants in the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship to get his hands on his first bracelet and the gargantuan $814,436 first place prize. But special mentions need to go out to two British players who also made the final table, John Kabbaj and John Shipley.

Ironically both Kabbaj and Shipley are from the same town back in the UK and were both on the same starting table during Day 1. Kabbaj is regarded as one of the best Omaha players in the UK and he has cashes and wins in Pot Limit Omaha tournaments dating back to 1997 but he is waiting for his first win in a PLO event at the WSOP. Going into the final table of this event he looked very strong but ultimately fell foul of Lamb’s good fortune and got his money in as a substantial underdog. Kabbaj, known simply as “Large,” saw Lamb open the betting to 185,000 and decided that the best way to play his Ac-Th-Ts-8d would be to three-bet all in. However, he did not plan on Lamb being dealt a monster of a hand, Ad-As-Qc-Qd to be exact, and when the board ran out 9h-5s-2c-4c-5c it was game over for Kabbaj and it was up to Shipley to bring home the goods for the UK.

Shipley has impressive results dating all the way back to 1994, including a total of six WSOP final tables, his most impressive result being in the 2002 Main Event where he finished seventh. After Dario Alioto and Christopher King followed Kabbaj to the cashier’s cage it looked like Shipley would be shipping his first bracelet but it simply was not to be and he was sent packing in well-earned third place for a career best score of $369,575. His final hand saw him get into a preflop raising war with Finnish high stakes cash game specialist Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro that resulted in Shipley being all in and at risk. His Ac-Kd-8c-5s was a narrow favourite over the Ks-Qh-Js-8d of his opponent but he soon fell behind as the flop came down . The 2s on the turn was no help to him and when the 7c landed on the river it was curtains for Shipley and the tournament reached the heads-up stages.

Lamb lead Kelopuro by 6,650,000 chips to 4,180,000 and it only took him 20 minutes to press him this advantage. The final hand saw the dealer put out the As-9h-3d flop and after only calling Kelopuro’s 240,000 raise prelop Lamb opted to check. Kelopuro was in no mood for slowing down and quickly bet 275,000, a bet that Lamb called. Lamb checked again when the Qs made an appearance on the turn but this time, when Kelopuro bet 675,000, Lamb raised the pot, essentially putting his Finnish opponent all in. Kelopuro did move all in and was quickly called. The Finn was in front, his Ac-Qc-Kd-7d, which had made two pair, leading the 6s-5h-4s-2d of Lamb. The dealer burned a card and brought the 5d into play, which completed a straight for Lamb and eliminated Kelopuro.

Lamb’s win takes his lifetime tournament winnings past the $2,300,000 and also sees him overtake Phil Hellmuth at the top of this year’s Player of the Year standings.

Final table payouts

1st: Ben Lamb: $814,436
2nd: Sami Kelopuro: $503,173
3rd: John Shipley: $369,575
4th: Christopher King: $273,575
5th: Dario Alioto: $203,113
6th: John Kabbaj: $153,517
7th: Cory Wood: $116,359
8th: Josh Tieman: $88,873
9th: Hans Winzeler: $68,410

News on June 28th 2011, from Matthew Pitt