Jerry Yang Wins The 2007 Main Event

Jerry Yang started the final table as the 2nd low chip stack with only 8,450,000 in chips. It didn't take him long to kick things into gear as he shockingly (ruining my prediction) busted Philip Hilm in 9th. Hilm was chip leader going in but saw the rail first as his pair with a flush draw did not hit against Yang's paired aces. Yang was a man on a mission knocking out 7 of the other 8 final table players. There were a number of memorable moments at the final table including Hevad Khan's elimination. Khan called a raise from Yang and before the flop was displayed across the felt he declared "I'm all in in the dark". The flop came king high, but it not deter Yang from calling with his pocket jacks. Khan did not pair his ace or queen and was sent home in 6th place (just missing the coveted millionaires club as he took home $956,243). Yang was not the only story of the final table as Alex Kravchenko managed to go from under 11 million in chips to over 30 million in less than a half hour. Kravchenko's rush ended however as he finished in 4th place, taking home $1,852,721.

Heads up came down to a battle between Yang, and professional poker player Tuan Lam. The last 2 years of the WSOP have featured very short heads up bouts that lasted only a few hands. This year, Lam held on for over 2 hours before Yang's pocket 8s (coincidentally the same hand Greg Raymer won with in 2005) held up against Lam's AQ suited. I heard a report that criticized Lam's approach to heads up for not being aggressive enough. Lam is known as an excellent heads up player and the report I saw made the point that he did not utilize that edge. While I did not watch the final table, I have read through reports of the hands and various commentaries. Given what I've read, my take is that this criticism is unfair. The first thing that must be understood is that no matter how big your edge is heads up, without chips it can't be utilized. The shorter your stack, the more reliant you are on the cards. Lam started heads up with only $23,025,000 to Yang's $104,450,000. With Blinds at $400,000/$800,000 and a $100,000 ante, 23 million does not allow for a lot of maneuvering. Secondly, as Phil Gordon pointed out in his commentary, Yang was not getting off of hands easily.

It all began for Yang when he put down 225 dollars to satellite his way into the Main Event. The Laos native is a father of six children and a psychologist. Aside from winning with class and dignity, Yang was generous enough to pledge 10% of his winnings to The Make A Wish Foundation, The Ronald McDonald House, and Feed The Children.

Below are the results from the 2007 WSOP Main Event Final Table:

Jerry Yang -- $8,250,000
Tuan Lam -- $4,840,981
Raymond Rahme -- $3,048,025
Alex Kravchenko -- $1,852,721
Jon Kalmar -- $1,255,069
Hevad Khan -- $956,243
Lee Childs -- $705,229
Lee Watkinson -- $585,699
Philip Hilm -- $525,934

Congratulations to Tom Schneider who was crowned the 2007 WSOP Player of The Year

-Benjamin Ryan