After watching the World Poker Crown final table for several hours I was anxious to see how the heads-up battle would play out. Before the tournament started I had picked the two players I thought would be playing heads-up. Those two players were Mike Lawson and Jack Hinchey.

Sure, that may have been the obvious choices considering they were both the chip leaders but Lawson, despite having a three to one chip lead over the other players, did not necessarily play all that well throughout the tournament. Time after time he was folding hands that, at the very least, warranted a call. Hinchey, on the other hand, was simply running over the table hitting hand after hand and picking up cards along the way.

I was hoping that Lawson would loosen up a bit once the table got down to six players but it never happened. Don’t get me wrong. I understand having a large chip stack and wanting to get down to the final three players and then win the tournament from there.

However, Lawson, in my opinion, at no time was playing to WIN the tournament and instead seemed to be on cruise control and taking as little risk as possible. That’s not to say that Lawson is a bad player. I just think his strategy of “cruising” instead of “bruising” cost him the tournament or at the least a legitimate shot at putting up a good fight heads-up.

Hinchey, on the other hand, was playing the final table of his life. Not only that but he was also aggressive from the first card and continued to play that way throughout the entire tournament. I was extremely impressed with Hinchey and how he handled himself. Hinchey is a decent guy and deserving winner of the World Poker Crown Championship. He literally dominated the table to the point that everyone else was just trying to stay out of his way.

By the time the tournament was down to the last five players it was as if they had decided to play for second place. You could attribute some of that to the TV factor and the stakes at hand as well. Nerves were definitely a factor for most. Hinchey was clearly more experienced than his opponents and it showed. Hinchey just won over $38,000 in a live tournament a little over a month ago. So he was more than in his comfort zone at a big final table. Most of the other players were small stakes internet players with the largest recent win being $9786 by Stanislaw.

Hinchey had a plan for winning and executed it marvelously. I give the highest kudos to Jack Hinchey for taking down the inaugural World Poker Crown Championship in fine fashion. I would also like to offer a big congratulation to all of the final table players as well. Those guys fought through a field of 2200+ players to get to the money. If you play poker you know that this is not an easy feat to accomplish. So, regardless of where they ultimately finished at the final table they all deserved to be there.

Overall the tournament was a lot of fun to watch and generated a lot of excitement in the online poker communities and poker rooms. This tournament is only going to get better the next time around. So stay tuned to www.888.com and the next World Poker Crown Championship tourney.