John Juanda Wins WSOPE 2008

After a record long final table battle, John Juanda finally won the last pot in the 2008 WSOP Europe against the eternally stone faced Russian Stanislaw Alekhin.

With almost 24 hours of play this was the longest final table in the WSOP history. Full Tilt pro John Juanda finally stood as winner, in level 28, after a seemingly unending roller coaster of losing and winning big pots.

Long night's epic poker battle

In the headsup, most of the time a relentless Juanda played the smaller stack against unreadable and seemingly unbeatable Stanislaw Alekhin of Russia.

It's been five years since John Juanda won his last WSOP bracelet. In the post fight interview with ESPN, Juanda said this win was his biggest achievement, seeing that the WSOP-E Main Event ranks among the three big ones, together with the WSOP Main Event and the WPT Championship.

For once, the chip leader won

Twenty-four hours earlier Juanda had gone into the final table as the chip leader against the following contenders:

That's one Canadian, two Americans, two Brits (including one Scot), one Swede, one Fin and two Russians, a truly international lineup.

Welcome Russia

If there's anything we should learn from the World Series of Poker 2008, it's that the Russians have come to stay in the top layer of professional poker.

With its long history of fantastic chess players, how could Russia not take a dominating position in poker!