2011 Caesars Cup Won By Team America

Team America has just won the 2011 Caesars Cup in Cannes, after defeating their European counterparts by 3-1.
The biennial event was first won by Team Europe at its inaugural opening in 2009, and the Americans had been smarting ever since. Promising revenge, a resolute Team America captain Phil Hellmuth put together a formidable team consisting of Johnny Chan, Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier and Ben Lamb and announced ahead of the competition:
“We’re going to win this time. Last time, there was a lack of team unity. This time around, we are much more focused. It was really humiliating to go through that, two years ago. We are not going to let that happen again.”
Hellmuth has now made good on that promise and wrestled the cup from a European side consisting of captain Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Jake Cody, Max Lykov, Gus Hansen and Tony G.
Match 1 saw alternating players Jason Mercier and Ben Lamb defeat Jake Cody and Tony G, the crucial hand coming after Mercier went all-in with pocket aces against Cody (Kh-8h) on a Jc-9h-4h flop. Losing the hand left Team Europe short-stacked and unable to mount a sustained comeback.
Match 2 then saw Team Europe even the score after Gus Hansen and Lykov beat
Hellmuth andh Negreanu. On the final hand Negreanu (Kh-8h) shoved his 55,000 stack pre-flop into Hansen’s Ad-9s, with the 10s-5s-4s-7c-2s board then making Europe the flush. 
Match 3 was a heads-up affair between Johnny Chan and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier with the final hand going to Chan all-in pre-flop with pocket fours to Elky’s Ah-6h.
Match 4 was also heads-up, this time between Hellmuth and Lykov, which reached a crunch point after Team America took a 156,000 to 44,000 chip advantage. Soon after, Lykov was all-in holding Kc-9c to Hellmuth’s Qc-10s with the Q-9-5-6-2 sealing the victory for Team America.
Commenting after their victory, Team America’s Daniel Negreanu said:
“There’s no money on the line in this event so all we do this for is pride. It’s not so much who wins or loses, because it usually just comes down to winning flips, but it’s about who made the most mistakes. It was a lot closer this year because last time our team made a lot of mistakes.”