Joe McKeehen lapping competition at WSOP Final Table

By Case Keefer (contact)

Monday, Nov. 9, 2015 | 12:55 a.m.

A heart fell on the turn, sending Pierre Neuville’s heart turning in his chest.

The 72-year-old Belgian retiree was all-in and at risk of elimination Sunday night in a hand at the Rio during the Final Table of the 2015 World Series of Poker. The penultimate community card only decreased Neuville’s chances of surviving from 83 percent to 73 percent by giving opponent Joe McKeehen a fourth heart to put him one away from a flush.

But Neuville knew that he had lost.

“Sometimes I think maybe there are some feelings in life that we still don’t know,” Neuville explained afterward. “When everything goes wrong, it’s not your day.”

A fifth heart, sure enough, came on the river to knock out Neuville in seventh place for $1,203,293 in poker world’s championship, which started with 6,420 players who paid $10,000 to enter this summer.

Neuville’s premonition was just one example of the resignation every player likely experienced against McKeehen in the first of three nights at the WSOP November Nine. McKeehen came in with the largest chip lead since the event went to its current delayed format in 2008 and only increased his advantage.

The 24-year-old poker pro from Philadelphia advances to Monday’s six-handed play, which begins at 4:30 p.m. at the Penn & Teller Theater with ESPN2 airing a delayed feed at 5, with 91.4 million chips. That accounts for 57 percent of the chips, and nearly three times more than his closest competitor in Israel’s Zvi Stern, who holds 32.4 million.

“Anything can happen in poker,” said Patrick Chan, who finished in ninth. “But Joe has a huge advantage.

McKeehen has sworn off speaking to the media until after the tournament concludes, presumably to devote singular focus on attaining the $7,683,346 first-place prize. He’s off to quite the start, having jettisoned all three players who busted on Sunday.

The former Arcadia University math major promised to stay aggressive before the tournament resumed, and he lived up to his word by controlling the table for the better part of five hours.

“It’s up to them to react to me,” McKeehen said of his opponents to PokerNews.com two weeks ago. “Everything’s going to go through me at the Final Table, I’m pretty sure.”

Stern and Neil Blumenfield, a 61-year-old from San Francisco who until recently worked in the software industry, were the only other players to build their chip stacks higher than where they started on Sunday. And their gains were only incremental at 1 million and 9 million, respectively.

They also were mostly a result of avoiding McKeehen, who enjoyed a rush of cards. On the second hand of play, McKeehen put two short-stacked opponents to a decision by shoving all-in with Ace-4.

Chan didn’t take much thought to call at only a narrow disadvantage with King-Queen but failed to improve and wound up as the shortest-lasting member of the November Nine in history.

Federico Butteroni, who finished in eighth, hung around for three hours with a desperately low amount of chips. He finally looked down at Ace-Jack and went all-in after a McKeehen raise.

“It was the first Ace I got in 40 hands, so I thought it was a good spot for a double-up,” Butteroni said. “But (McKeehen) picked up Ace-King.”

The board was no help to Butteroni, leading to his exit. Such was life for those up against McKeehen.

Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.