Just call him Bord…James Bord. Well okay, he may not like or answer to that take off of the classic James Bond introduction. What you can call Mr. Bord is the 2010, World Series of Poker Europe, No Limit Texas Holdem Main Event Champion. Of course if you going to call him that you may need to take a breath somewhere in the middle. So, in a WSOP Europe gathering that is fundamentally an abbreviated, concentrated version of the American World Series of Poker, James Bord is your Texas Holdem king of the poker pros.
On paper, this World Series of Poker win looks less spectacular then the American WSOP Main Events, ones that where thousands of poker pros are competing for the Texas Holdem championship. In truth, to win the WSOP Europe Main Event may take a little more skill at the game of Texas Holdem then it does to be victorious in Vegas. The World Series of Poker Europe Main Event drew 346 competitors. Granted, it was wasn’t the week long grind that the WSOP America is, but it lacked the rampaging hoard of amateurs who treat the early goings of the Championship tournament like a game of Russian Roulette. There is less attrition in the European WSOP Main Event, and fewer high profile poker pros that are eliminated by a combination of bad luck and the sheer weight of numbers. In short Mr. Bord had to run a gauntlet of decorated poker pros, many of them with World Series of Poker championships under their belt, in order to bring the Texas holdem title back to England. He accomplished this in fine fashion.
In the early goings, the dead weight and Phil Hellmuth (who may be soon be considered holdem tournament dead weight very soon) all dropped away. If you are among the leaders and poker pros Phil Ivey and Viktor Blom still out there competing against you, it is enough to encourage those of lesser fortitude to submissively urinate and sprint from the table. Bord pulled up his socks and just kept going. Phil and Viktor didn’t make the final table, and James faced an extremely challenging final table that took him 11 hours to beat.
In the end it came down to Englishman James Bord against Italian Fabrizio Baldassari. Baldassari held an impressive chip lead for awhile, but Bord was clamped down on him like a bulldog chewing on a burglars leg. In the final hands Bord doubled his stack with a well played Big Slick, and from there on in he simply put his boot on the neck of Fabrizio, and finished him off. It was a thing of poker beauty.
We congratulate James Bord on his impressive win at the WSOP Europe.
