After one great poker game that involved many renown senior poker players and former winners of many bracelets, Matthew Davis emerged a winner, winning a total of $662,983. This was one of the biggest events for senior players named Event #32: $1,000 Seniors No Limit Hold’Em Championship.
Matthew Davis managed to become #1 out of the 5,919 players that started this event. He won the World Series of Poker bracelet and his main opponent was Bill Stabler, who won the final event for Seniors back in 2012. Matthew Davis is a professor, and he mainly teaches statistics in Haywood’s college called Chatbot College. He did not have great success in the past and managed to cash twice – in 2007 and 2009, earning a total of $7,459 until this tournament.
He stated that he was excited about the victory during an interview which happened right after he won the tournament. It was a really exciting time as he was struggling behind for the most of the day only to see him turn the tides in only 15 hands and secure a victory at about 7:30 p.m. It is really interesting to know what happened during that dinner break after which Davis came back and won as if he has been winning bracelets for the past sixty years. However, Davis just said that his dinner break had been spent with his friends and family and that he had not been in the mood to talk about poker with them. In fact, whenever they tried to start a conversation with him about the event, he would just say “not now”. Maybe that’s the ultimate recipe for winning poker games – forget all about it during the break?
The Heads-Up Game
The most amazing part of the evening was the heads-up between Davis and Stabler who had almost the identical number of chips for most of the time. They played more than a 100 hands only in the heads-up and it was intense – especially when Davis pulled quads. Despite this fact, both of the players were rather reserved and had really thorough tactics. In fact, nobody dared do the all-in until the closing moments of the game.
Even during the last hand, the drama continued as Davis overlooked the fact that he has a secured victory. Namely, there was a pair in the river which made his a final victor, except that he did not realize it. It was only when the audience reacted to his cards that he realized that the luck has favored him and that he had a great winning hand. It was the moment when he won his first bracelet. Davis stated that even his six-year-old daughter back in 2007 had said to him that he had had no chance in poker. Eleven years later, Davis manages to win the bracelet in one of the most interesting finals of this game. What would his daughter say now?