2007 WSOP Event #45 – Bill Edler Wins $5,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em

Bill Edler made a tremendous comeback and out-maneuvered a strong final table to win over $900,000 and his first bracelet in the $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em event at the World Series of Poker. 

Starting with only 535,000 chips, Edler was the shortest stack at the table entering the final day of play in the tournament.  He was not too far away from three of the players, but the chip leader, Erik Friberg, had almost 2.8 million, more than five times the chips that Edler had.  Friberg, who made the final table of last year’s Main Event, was just one of Edler’s problems.  Also present were Alex Bolotin and last year’s winner of this event, Dutch Boyd.  It would be a tough road to hoe for Edler. 

Knowing he had to amass some chips in a hurry, Edler moved all-in pre-flop five out of the twelve hands.  The first four times, he got no callers, although he did pick off a raise by Bolotin on the fourth all-in.  On the fifth try, Dutch Boyd, called him with pocket Jacks.  Edler was in bad shape with just A-7, but he did have Boyd covered as a result of his previous all-ins, so while losing would cripple him, it would not be the end of his tournament.  Edler didn’t get anything on the flop, but he hit his Ace on the turn to eliminate Boyd in 5^th place (Gioi Luong had gone out four hands earlier) and build his stack to 1.2 million. 

From there, Edler stayed fairly quiet until he could find another opportunity to collect a lot of chips quickly.  On hand 39, he moved all-in over the top of a Greg Pohler raise (Pohler had recently doubled through Friberg to take the chip lead) and Pohler called.  Edler had him dominated, A-Q versus A-J.  A Queen on the flop all but clinched the hand for Edler as he doubled to 2.1 million and took over the position of chip leader. 

Similar to his first double-up, he then sat back and let others do battle.  Friberg doubled through Bolotin, Bolotin doubled through Pohler, and then Friberg eliminated Pohler in 4^th place.  Three handed, Edler had almost 2 million, behind both Friberg (2.5 million) and Bolotin (2.7 million). 

This time, instead of winning huge pots, he chipped away at the other players, going on streaks of four pots in a row, followed shortly by a five pot run.  After Bolotin knocked out Friberg in 3^rd place, Edler went into heads-up with Bolotin with a small chip lead, 3.7 million to 3.5 million.   

Edler dominated the heads-up match, taking a million chips from Bolotin on the fourth hand.  He kept winning hands, increasing his stack to 5.3 million before the death blow.  On the 107^th hand of the final table, Edler raised pre-flop and called Bolotin’s all-in after a couple minutes of deliberation.  He said in an interview later that he was thinking of his wife while he was pondering his decision, as that week was their seventh wedding anniversary.  When he did call, he saw the bad news: his A-10 was losing to Bolotin’s A-Q.  But, lady luck smiled on Edler this day, giving him a 10 on the flop to win the hand.  A payday of almost one million dollars should help buy a nice anniversary present. 

Final Table Standings 

1. Bill Edler -- $904,672
2. Alex Bolotin -- $504,686
3. Erik Friberg -- $345,582
4. Greg Pohler -- $232,669
5. Dutch Boyd – $169,369
6. Gioi Luong -- $110,860