With Romanello having won a World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour title he was only lacking a WSOP bracelet to join the likes of Gavin Griffin, Roland de Wolfe, Jake Cody and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier as poker player who had won three major live titles; something he was hoping to put right in this event. However, it did not turn out that was as Romanello crashed out in seventh place after a clash with Jonathan Lane; a player who was catching cards for fun at the 10-handed final table.
Romanello's exit hand saw Lane open to 55,000 from the button and both McCorkell (small blind) and Romanello (big blind) make the call. Both blinds checked the arrival of the 8d-9d-5d flop but lane did not slow down, instead he made a continuation bet of 100,000. This forced McCorkell out of the pot but Romanello had other ideas and he check-raised all-in. Lane quickly called and showed 10c-10s which meant the Qc-9c of Romanello was most definitely second best. The 3h turn failed to improve Romanello and neither did the 8s river and with that a dejected Romanello exited from the tournament area and become the saddest man in history to win almost $50,000.
With Romanello out of the equation the railbirds' attention switched to McCorkell and he did not disappoint. One-by-one the field was getting shorter and shorter and when Antonio Esfandiari was sent to the rail in third - at the hands of McCorkell - the Brits were only one elimination away from really having something to shout about.
Going into the heads-up battle McCorkell trailed Jeremiah Fitzpatrick by 1,610,000 to 3,630,000 chips but that did not seem to bother him as he wasted little time in clawing his way back into the tie and then so he was almost level pegging with Fitzpatrick. Then the following hand went down, a hand that damaged Fitzpatrick beyond repair. McCorkell was all-in with a pair of eights and found himself up against the Ac-8d of his opponent. The 10c-6d-Kh-9d-10s board failed to connect with Fitzpatrick and when the stacks were counted it was deemed Fitzpatrick only covered his opponent by 45,000 chips!
These went into the middle on the very next hand and that resulted in a double up for Fitzpatrick but it was all over the very next hand. Once again Fitzpatrick's nano-stack went into the middle of the felt, this time holding 5h-2c. McCorkell turned over 8d-5d and was in front. The 8h-Ac-Qc flop put even more distance between the two players and when the turn and river were the Kh and As respectively McCorkell's hand was best and he became the United Kingdom's first bracelet winner of the 2012 WSOP!
Event #36 Final Table Results
1st: Craig McCorkell - $368,593
2nd: Jeremiah Fitzpatrick - $228,261
3rd: Antonio Esfandiari - $151,614
4th: Jonathan Lane - $112,512
5th: Athanasios Polychronopoulos - $84,436
6th: Alessandro Longobardi - $63,988
7th: Roberto Romanello - $48,924
8th: Thiago Nishijima - $37,707
9th: Joe Tehan - $29,277
10th: Sardor Gaziev - $22,899