If there is one thing that Scottish sportspeople seem to do very well, it is glorious failure. Andy Murray finally managed to buck this trend with his Grand Slam win in 2013 but for so long in his career it looked as though he would be another Scottish person who promised big and then just fell short. There is something about Scotland that seems to revel in the glorious failure and coming so close and now there has been a poker hard luck story to add to the tales of national woe!
Not that David Vamplew has anything to be ashamed of or really upset over. Most poker players around the world would love to get the chance to play at the WSOP 2013 event so getting to the final table of Event #2 was a huge achievement. Vamplew went all the way to second place in the $5,000 No Limit Hold ‘Em Eight-Handed Tournament. This tournament proved to be a big success and there were a great number of poker players who were involved with the final table being a very competitive place. Vamplew has already grabbed a European Poker Tour title, so he knows what it takes to see out a victory but sadly in this case he was not able to complete his journey.
Only one poker player was destined to win at the final table
Going into the final table, 7 of the 8 players held chip stacks that were between 432,000 and 629,000. This meant that there could have been a huge level of competition at the final table but you have to take into consideration the chip stack of the 8th player, Trevor Pope. Pope was the chip leader on a phenomenal 3,420,000 chips which made him the runaway leader and although chip stacks can change hand quickly and largely at a final table, most players expected Pope to remain in charge throughout the final table.
So it proved and going into the final head to head, the chip stack stood up as Vamplew on 550,000 chips while Pope held 6,650,000. Vamplew put up a valiant effort but it was done and dusted within 10 hands of play as Pope proved that chip leaders can sometimes get home in style and comfort!
For the win, Pope gets the all-important bracelet but he also managed to bag $553,906 for the glory of winning. In second place though, Vamplew helped himself to $342,450 which is an awful lot of money for one poker tournament. This huge amount takes Vamplew to a total of $2,539,059 in his career which is an amount of cash that no would be upset at picking up in their poker career!