German crowned 2011 World Series of Poker Champion
9 November 2011
After one of the fiercest and hotly contested heads-up matches in World Series of Poker history, 22 year-old Heinz Pius became the second youngest player to ever win the WSOP Main Event, and the first German to capture the title (Henry Nowakowski is the only other German to reach the final table, which he did in 2001).
After Sunday’s action that saw Pius, Martin Staszko, and Ben Lamb reach Tuesday’s final three, most people expected the heads-up battle to be contested between Pius and Lamb, but Staszko decided to crash the party and proved to be more than the other two players could handle. In fact, Staszko and Lamb would tangle on the very first hand of the night, moving all-in pre-flop. The hand would leave Lamb crippled, with just over 10 Big Blinds in his stack, while Staszko would moved up to challenge Heinz Pius who controlled 50% of the chips in play at the start of the night.
Staszko would take over the chip lead on Hand 2 of the night, and would eliminate Lamb on hand 4. Once Lamb was eliminated the Staszko vs. Heinz duel lasted over 100 hands and saw the chip-lead change hands eight times before Pius Heinz was able to dispatch Staszko (who to virtually everyone’s surprise, turned out to be something of a heads-up specialist).
1. Pius Heinz — $8,715,638
2. Martin Staszko — $5,433,086
3. Ben Lamb — $4,021,138
4. Matt Giannetti — $3,012,700
5. Phil Collins — $2,269,599
6. Eoghan O’Dea — $1,720,831
7. Badih Bounahra — $1,314,097
8. Anton Makiievskyi — $1,010,015
9. Sam Holden — $782,115
