Five-Time WSOP Gold Bracelet Winner Victorious in Caesars Palace Championship

All great athletes possess intangible qualities.  There's something extraordinary about stars such as Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, and Wayne Gretzsky performing in the prime of their careers.  It's not just that they were winners.  Many athletes win championships.  It was the way they won which captivated fans everywhere leaving an indelible mark on the consciousness of a generation.

Witnessing the final table of the most recent World Series of Poker Circuit championship at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, one had a sense of absolute inevitability.  Like watching Jordan, Montana, or Gretzsky trailing on the scoreboard with the clock ticking, every fan in the house knows the next play is likely to be a score and the champion will pull out a victory.  Allen Cunningham may have started his quest for yet another tournament victory ranked seventh in the chip count of the final nine, but all eyes were focused on the phenomenally-talented 31-year-old winner of five WSOP gold bracelets.  Indeed, very late in the competition, Cunningham began heads-up play down by a 4 to 1 stack margin.  But every spectator packed to the rafters inside Caesars Palace seemed to expect Cunningham's inexorable fate – yet another championship on his burgeoning resume of poker accomplishments.  Only a rare few stars in any sport or field have the capacity to instill such confidence.

This is not to say Cunningham's victory came easy.  To the contrary, the tournament's runner up -- 24-year-old Ben Fineman -- was an arduous adversary.  Facing anyone except a dozen or so players in the world, including Cunningham, Fineman would certainly have been a prohibitive favorite to win the match, given both his talent and massive chip count during most of the five-hour finale.  But true champions have a way of displaying their best game under the most extraordinary of circumstances and in that manner Allen Cunningham proved once again why he is so revered by so many as a great tournament player.

The $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em championship event was played inside the expansive $10 million tournament facility at Caesars Palace.  With poker's icons looking down from photographs encircling the 63-table room (including Allen Cunningham's portrait) Caesars has quietly become the venue with Las Vegas' busiest tournament schedule.