The other players should have practiced avoidance as Prahlad Friedman won the WPT Legends of Poker. 

In an eery similar fashion to Ivan Demidov who final tabled a major tournament (the WSOPE) in the break before the November Nine, Kevin Schaffel took second place.  Schaffel and fellow November Niner, Steve Begleiter who approrpriately went out in ninth place the day before have to be feeling good leading up to the WSOP main event.

Schaffel’s day, and the tournament with it, ended when he shoved with KJ.  Friedman stewed but goaded by Schaffel, called with AQ.    Neither hit a pair and A high won.  Friedman was stacking his over $1 million first place prize and polishing his bracelet.  Friedman also won the 25k seat for the WPT Championship in April.  Schaffel who already got a check for over a million (the minimum any of the November Nine can win), had to settle for second and the $471k prize that went with it.

Earlier the goading worked to Schaffel’s advantage as he talked Friedman into calling with a flush draw when he held two pair.  Two bricks followed.  That evened things up a bit as Friedman took a big lead into heads up play with 6.6 million to Schaffel’s 1.85 million.

Todd Terry gave the edge to Friedman when he went out in 3rd place for over 231k.  His pocket fours lost their race vs. Friedman’s AQ (a lucky hand for Prahlad on this day).   Terry, a noted poster on internet forum 2+2, finally gave his fellow messageboarders a TV face to go with his commentary.  Beating Terry to the exit door was Toto Leonidas.

The pro also got eliminated by Friedman who held AK.  Toto chased a flush draw for his tournament life on a king high board and missed.  His journey on the yellow brick road ended when two spades teased his club flush draw on the turn and river.  Toto pocketed 140k.

Keven Schaffel did do a little helping by knocking out 5th place finisher Sam Stein, when his pocket sevens improved to a set, and all but ended the race with Stein’s KQ on the flop.  Stein won 116k.  Stein was the only player Friedman didn’t knock out as earlier on he sent Mike Krescanko home in sixth place with 89k for his trouble.  This time online poker pro Friedman was facing AQ, not holding it, but it was made all the easier when he held KK and flopped another one.