Adams earns win in four-max debut

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The World Series of Poker staff likes to be creative with the tournaments they offer. Their motto, year after year, is that the schedule "offers something for everybody," and this year was no exception. When the schedule was released earlier this year, one event definitely raised some eyebrows, and no, I'm not talking about the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop. Rather, Event 28 offered up a first for the WSOP, a four-handed no-limit hold 'em event. The transition of the online poker generation from full-ring games to short-handed action encouraged the WSOP to take a risk here, and considering 750 players turned out to play in the $2,500 buy-in, the event seems to be a huge success.

After three days of action, Timothy Adams emerged with his first WSOP bracelet and became the third Canadian to capture the gold in 2012. He earned $392,476 for the victory. It was his sixth career WSOP cash and first WSOP final table.

"Three days of four-handed poker is crazy because most of the time you're playing deep, so it's like you're playing a deep cash game, four-handed, for 12 hours a day," said Adams. "I have a lot of experience playing short-handed … that's kind of what I specialize in online, playing three-handed, four-handed, five-handed, six-handed. So not once did I really feel uncomfortable during the poker tournament.

"It's an incredible tournament. Awesome. I mean, I hope the World Series of Poker has more four-handed tournaments …"

The aggression during the four-handed event may not be anything we've seen in the past. Sitting on stacks isn't an option, and as a result, eliminations were occurring rapidly at all times during the tournament.

[+] Enlarge

Courtesy of WSOP.comTimothy Adams earned $392,476 and his first WSOP bracelet in Event 28 of the 2012 WSOP.

Adams has attended the WSOP for the past five years, but unlike his previous trips, he decided that this year he'd play only a few events in Vegas and continue to grind online. His schedule included the four-max and six-max events over the past week, then the $10,000 six-handed event and main event later on this Series. Focusing on what works best seems to be a reflection on his background in business.

"I came down just to play the short-handed tournaments because … that's kind of what I specialize in," he said. "I mean, it all worked out. … Basically, I play tournaments to hopefully win, and winning is the best possible outcome. And it just happened. It doesn't even seem like it happened. It's all such like a blur right now."

The final day began with two tables and only eight players remaining. Andrey Gulyy, Toan Trinh and Torrey Rielly were eliminated during the first two hours of play, and Greg Merson became the final-table bubble boy shortly after. Brendon Rubie knocked out two-time PCA main event final table participant Anthony Gregg in fourth while Adams finished off a tough James Schaaf in third. Adams held the chip lead for the entire heads-up matchup against Rubie and entered the history books as the first WSOP four-max champion.

Other notable finishers include Jason Koon (ninth), Mickey Petersen (10th), Mohsin Charania (11th), Eric Froehlich (15th), Sam Stein (16th) and Tony Dunst (18th).

Below are the complete results of Event 28 at the 2012 World Series of Poker:

Event 28: Four-handed no-limit hold 'em
Buy-in: $2,500
Entries: 750
Prize pool: $1,706,250
Players in the money: 80

1. Timothy Adams ($392,476)
2. Brendon Rubie ($242,458)
3. James Schaaf ($164,823)
4. Anthony Gregg ($114,711)
5. Greg Merson ($70,280)
6. Torrey Reily ($70,280)
7. Toan Trinh ($38,279)
8. Andrey Gulyy ($38,279)
9. Jason Koon ($25,252)
10. Mickey Petersen ($25,252)
11. Mohsin Charania ($19,741)
12. Josh Gottesman ($19,741)
13. Ronit Chamani ($15,714)
14. Griffin Benger ($15,714)
15. Eric Froehlich ($12,745)
16. Sam Stein ($12,745)
17. Tom Braband ($10,510)
18. Tony Dunst ($10,510)
19. Michael Banducci ($10,510)
20. Alexander Meidinger ($10,510)
21. John Andress ($10,510)
22. Brian Rast ($10,510)
23. Matthew Vengrin ($10,510)
24. Joe Tehan ($10,510)
25. Jeff Madsen ($8,821)
26. Mustapha Kanit ($8,821)
27. Bobby Poe ($8,821)
28. Michael Aron ($8,821)
29. Jesse Martin ($8,821)
30. John Orr ($8,821)
31. Mohammed Rezaian ($8,821)
32. Jamie Armstrong ($8,821)
33. Jonthan Kantor ($7,524)
34. Adalberto Orrigo ($7,524)
35. Jeffrey Forrest ($7,524)
36. Alexander Hering ($7,524)
37. Jason Helder ($7,524)
38. Shankar Pillai ($7,524)
39. Jon Turner ($7,524)
40. Steve Weiss ($7,524)
41. Annette Obrestad ($6,534)
42. Darryll Fish ($6,534)
43. Martins Adeniya ($6,534)
44. Grayson Ramage ($6,534)
45. Bradley Craig ($6,534)
46. Lex Veldhuis ($6,534)
47. Ken Einiger ($6,534)
48. Alexander Rich ($6,534)
49. Eric Werner ($5,767)
50. Jeffrey Gross ($5,767)
51. David Singontiko ($5,767)
52. Kenneth Hicks ($5,767)
53. Daniel Hirleman ($5,767)
54. Benjamin Palmer ($5,767)
55. Humberto Brenes ($5,767)
56. David Johnston ($5,767)
57. Josh Brikis ($5,169)
58. Gavin Smith ($5,169)
59. Adam Adler ($5,169)
60. Eric Cloutier ($5,169)
61. Andrew Badecker ($5,169)
62. David Miscikowski ($5,169)
63. Stuart Marshak ($5,169)
64. Ryan Martinez ($5,169)
65. Thomas Miller ($4,760)
66. Raj Vohra ($4,760)
67. Roger Fontes ($4,760)
68. DM Delvecchio ($4,760)
69. Leo Wolpert ($4,760)
70. Michael Swimelar ($4,760)
71. In Sum Geoum ($4,760)
72. Steven Watts ($4,760)
73. Nick Gibson ($4,385)
74. Isaac Haxton ($4,385)
75. Justin Kindred ($4,385)
76. Jesse Rockowitz ($4,385)
77. Jiri Kulhanek ($4,385)
78. Grayson Nichols ($4,385)
79. Davidi Kitai ($4,385)
80. Hiren Patel ($4,385)

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Andrew Feldman

ESPN.com

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Andrew Feldman is ESPN.com's Poker Editor. He is the host of the Poker Edge Podcast and co-host of ESPN Inside Deal. Andrew has covered the poker industry for ESPN since 2004.