Chris Ferguson has won a live tournament sponsored by PokerStars. That’s got to sound surprising, considering Ferguson was one of Full Tilt Poker’s founders and should be in hiding after his poker room’s scandal.
Fortunately for poker fans who don’t want to see the long-haired card banana-slicer acquire another penny, it wasn’t “the” Chris Ferguson who won the UK & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) Newcastle Main Event, but rather an easier to root for 23-year old from Edinburgh, Scotland. For his win, the first significant title of his live tournament career, Ferguson grabbed £87,640.
Ferguson started the eight-handed final table in second place, but quickly saw his chip stack shrink. During the first orbit, he called an all-in by Anthony Shields for 445,000 chips. With A-K, Ferguson was in great shape against Shields’ A-9, but a 9 showed up on the flop, allowing Shields to double-up.
Just a few hands later, he conceded a huge pot to Jack Sambrook. Ferguson opened pre-flop to 48,000 and called Sambrook’s re-raise to 100,000. After the 3-9-J flop, Sambrook bet 120,000 and Ferguson called. The same pattern held true after the 5 was dealt on the turn, though this time it was for 220,000 chips. When the King was dealt on the river, Sambrook bet 375,000, which turned out to be too much for Ferguson, who folded after some thought. It wouldn’t be much longer before Ferguson was down under a million chips and one of the shortest stacks at the table.
Ferguson held strong, though, finding cards at the right times to go into heads-up play against Alex Jobling facing a 2-to-1 chip deficit, 6.095 million to 2.975 million. He was up and down for the first half-hour before doubling through Jobling to pull within a million chips. At that point, the two competitors took a break to discuss a deal.
According to the payout structure, the winner was to receive £105,900 while the runner up earned £63,860. Ferguson and Jobling settled on an almost equal split of the prize money: Jobling, the chip leader, got £82,120, Ferguson got £77,640, and they played for the UKIPT trophy and the remaining £10,000.
Just 20 minutes after the deal was struck, Ferguson took control of the match, taking the chip lead for the first time at any point during the final table. Ferguson raised to 200,000 pre-flop, Jobling re-raised to 450,000, and Ferguson called. After the flop an all-heart flop of 9-8-3, the two got into raising war with all the chips eventually getting into the middle. Ferguson had Jobling dead to rights, holding 7-4 of hearts, good for a flopped flush. Jobling had pocket 7’s, good for not much. That took Ferguson’s stack up to 6.72 million, while Jobling’s fell to 2.91 million.
A few hands later, it was all over. The chips were all committed pre-flop, Jobling putting his tournament life on the line with A-Q of hearts and Ferguson having him covered with pocket 8’s. Jobling was unable to pair either of his cards or make a flush, sending him out of the game in second place, while shipping the title and the extra £10,000 to Chris Ferguson.
UK & Ireland Poker Tour Newcastle Main Event – Final Table Results
1. Christopher Ferguson – £87,640
2. Alexander Jobling – £82,120
3. Sam Holden – £39,030
4. David Knight – £28,780
5. Ewan Brown – £22,240
6. Anthony Shields – £17,880
7. Jack Sambrook – £13,520
8. Dan Hemingway – £10,250
*Front page photo courtesy Mickey May, PokerStars Blog
I was lucky enough to follow Chris Ferguson’s progress throughout this tournament and I can say that he fully deserved to be crowned as the winner!