The final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe lasted for 484 hands, over 22 gruelling hours but many individual hands stand out as being key to the direction the tournament took and both involved, eventual winner, John Juanda.

Juanda entered the final table as chip leader and from the off, used his massive stack to bully his fellow players and accumulate more chips. By hand 88, Juanda had won the most pots of all the other players, with 19, all but two of which were won without the need to showdown his hand.

Eventually someone would have to take a stand against him or he would run over the table and have an unassailable lead. The man to do this was Stanislav Alekhin.

As he had done on numerous occasions, Juanda raised on the button to 55,000 on hand 107, which only Alekhin called in the big blind. The flop came down 2s 5h 6s and Alekhin checked his option to bet. Juanda quickly fired out a 100,000-continuation bet that was called by his Russian opponent.

The king of hearts fell on the turn and once again, Alekhin checked. Again, Juanda bet out, this time increasing the amount to 200,000, but after checking his cards again, Alekhin made the call, creating one of the biggest pots of the tournament thus far. The Russian once again checked when the three of hearts came on the river, and once more, Juanda fired out a substantial bet, this time 340,000. Almost instantly, Alekhin announced he was all-in, causing the crowd to rise to its feet and John Juanda to do the same!

Eventually, Juanda sat back down and tossed his cards into the muck to send the gargantuan pot in the direction of the Russian and leaving him with a mere 600,000 chips with blinds at 12,000/24,000/3000, meaning Juanda only had enough chips to last another eleven orbits of the table.

Losing 695,000 chips in a single hand, to go from chip leader to second to last in chips, totally altered the dynamic of the final table for Juanda. Until hand 107, he had ample room to raise and re-raise at will, control and bully the table and cruise into the top couple of money places.

After the hand, Juanda found the tables turned on him and as a shorter stack, would be under constant pressure to keep ahead of the blinds knowing he could only survive a mere 55 more hands if he did not win a pot, with his current chip stack. This would force the aggressive player to be more controlled with his raises, knowing that someone shoving all-in over the top of him would essentially commit him to the hand and he would be playing for his tournament life.