Ivey Falls Short - Cassidy wins the Gold

Amongst his peers, Phil Ivey is thought of as being the greatest poker player on the planet. 

What makes Ivey so feared and respected is his ability to play any form of poker, and play it well. This was demonstrated, yet again, when Ivey made his second final table of the 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Event #24: $5,000 Omaha Hi-Lo.

It was a final table brimming with quality, experience, and youth. There was a $294,777 first prize up for grabs and, of course the WSOP gold bracelet that every poker player covets, just like treasure hunters covet the Holy Grail. 

Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow, Scotty Nguyen, Phil Ivey, and Joe Cassidy were the main contenders in a mouth-watering finale.

Phil Ivey, who came second in Event #17: $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em, was so close but so far, once again, as he finished in 3rd place for the tidy sum of $136,046. 

The three-handed play had taken the tournament deep into the early hours, and it left Joe Cassidy to play heads-up with The Prince of Poker, and former WSOP Main Event champion, Scotty Nguyen.

In the end, the clock struck 03:00am, and a decision was made to postpone the match-up until the next day. 

When the players returned it took a further two-hours of heads-up play to determine the winner. Before their unscheduled break, Cassidy held the chip lead 3 million versus 845,000 and, when he returned, he was everyone’s favourite to win his first WSOP gold bracelet. 

Nguyen returned fresh and reinvigorated and, at one point, reduced the chip deficit to a mere 400,000 chips. But, despite that great comeback, Cassidy was eventually able to overcome his experienced opponent to take home $297,777 and his first WSOP gold bracelet.