Just a few days after the first Dutch bracelet, Belgium couldn't hold back on it, and in the first Belgian final table appearance ever, they shipped the bracelet in the $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em event immediately. He started the day with an average stack. Jan von Halle was the chipleader (you might have heard he checked his royal flush on the river in event 1, a lot of confusion but Von Halle said it was a misread). Chris Bell and Lee Watkinson his best known opponents:

Seat 1: David Kitai - 274,000
Seat 2: Ben Roberts - 82,000
Seat 3: Ayaz Mahmood - 314,000
Seat 4: Michael Greco - 120,000
Seat 5: Chris Bell - 260,000
Seat 6: Jan Von Halle - 485,000
Seat 7: Robert Cheung - 352,000
Seat 8: Keith Greer - 238,000
Seat 9: Lee Watkinson - 357,000

First bustout was Michael Greco, he got a pokerplayer's nightmare: KK vs AA on the final table, meant he was busted out by Chris Bell. The next bustouts were classics as well, first a coinflip, than top pair vs midpair and yet another coinflip meant Ben Roberts, Ayaz Mahmood and Robert Cheung were out. Lee Watkinson was the first of the favorites to go, A4 vs A6s from Chris Bell, in the 67th hand we were down to 4. Actually it was pretty boring, due to the fact that day 2 took quite long, the blinds were pretty high, meaning either they get all-in preflop, or pots are checked down all the way. Most bets get folded by the other players immediately. That being said, we did have our heads-up battle within 100 hands! On hand 99, Jan von Halle got all-in with midpair vs toppair against Davidi Kitai and got knocked out 4th. The hand after that we see Keith Greer being knocked out with JJ against the QQ of Chris Bell.

Heads-up started with 1.4mln chips for Bell, 1 mln for Kitai. With 7 players knocked out in the first 100 hands, the crowd didnt think it'd take long untill we knew who won it, but they were so wrong. At 5.45PM they started, in the next 100 hands, Kitai lost some chips but eventually gained the chiplead, about 2:1 at 8.20PM on hand 200. Bell fights back and gets a slight chiplead, and gets crippled when he moves all-in with K8o on a Q-3-2 flop. Kitai insta-calls with his pocket queens. The hand after it should have been all over, but Bell manages to win with his K7s against the A4o of Kitai. Finally, after 187 hands of heads-up play (!) we get to see the final hand. Bell raises, Kitai puts him all-in (Bell is pretty short on chips) and Bell calls with . Kitai shows and wins the pot, and the first Belgian bracelet, along with $244,546

1. Davidi Kitai $244,546
2. Chris Bell $155,806
3. Keith Greer $94,695
4. Jan von Halle $77,077
5. Lee Watkinson $63,313
6. Robert Cheung $50,100
7. Ayaz Mahmood $39,089
8. Ben Roberts $30,831
9. Michael Greco $22,573

By: Pindarots



Comments (0)

It was a storm at the poker table: it took only 63 hands to the lower number of players at the final table to five! After that we could witness a situation most of us dream about: an insanely hot run!
Final table started with Jesper Hougaard as a chip leader, and this time the pokergods were supporting him, as he managed to hold his chip lead to the very last moments of the tournament, winning $610,304 after outlasting 2,446 other players in the Event 36, a No-Limit Hold'em with a $1,500 buy-in!

Final table at the beginning:

Jesper Hougaard $1,582,000
Cody Slaubaugh $1,419,000
Danny Wong $1,105,000
Rick Solis $900,000
Justin Wald $873,000
Owen Crowe $674,000
Doug Middleton $356,000
John Shipley $269,000
Aaron Kanter $165,000

Jesper Hougaard was running hot as hell, increasing his chip lead over and over again on the final table, while getting it all-in preflop with worse hands: against Wong's was enough to eliminate the second player after flop brings.. ! His was enough to send yet another player to the rail with when a king falls on the river!
Going into heads-up Hougaard had Cody Slaubaugh completely crushed, holding 6,6mln chips against a tiny stack of 850,000 in front of Cody! Bring it on!
On the final hand was very much as expected: agressive preflop game from both players lead them all-in: from Jesper against . The flop immediately brings a queen: , turn is a blank and Cody is drawing dead! This means Jesper Hougaard wins his first WSOP bracelet and some cash as well.

Final results:

1. Jesper Hougaard $610,304
2. Cody Slaubaugh $389,128
3. Aaron Kanter $258,862
4. Danny Wong $217,110
6. Justin Wald $140,286
7. Rick Solis $106,884
8. Owen Crowe $81,833
9. John Shipley $56,782

By: Defrag


Comments (1)

Yet again we start with 18 players on the final day, with Ram Vaswani (1 bracelet) as chipleader in the $10,000 World Championship Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better. Amongst the field are Mike Matusow (3 bracelets), Chau Giang (3 bracelets), David Chiu (4 bracelets), Tony Ma (2 bracelets), Brent Carter (2 bracelets) and Berry Johnston (5 bracelets, including '86 Main Event). The best known player on the final table without a bracelet was without a doubt David Benyamine. Of these braceletwinners, Brent Carter, Chau Giang and Berry Johnston don't make it to the final table, leaving these 9 to battle for the bracelet:

Seat 1: Hieu 'Tony' Ma (South El Monte, CA) - 310,000 Chips
Seat 2: Jason Gray (Sydney, Austrailia) - 590,000 Chips
Seat 3: Ram Vaswani (London, England) - 175,000 Chips
Seat 4: Toto Leonidas (Glendale, CA) 720,000 Chips
Seat 5: David Chiu (Roland Heights, CA) - 730,000 Chips
Seat 6: Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow (Las Vegas, NV) - 195,000 Chips
Seat 7: David Benyamine (Paris, NV) - 1,200,000 Chips
Seat 8: Greg Jamison (Cedar Falls, IA) - 450,000 Chips
Seat 9: Eugene Katchalov (Brooklyn, NY) - 300,000 Chips

During the first few hours of the final table, it was Mike "The Mouth" Matusow dominating the tabletalk as usual. While he started with a shortstack, he doubled up a few times, he played most pots and when he got knocked out at 5th place, the other players must have been relieved, and enjoying the silence. From that moment on, it was all David Benyamine dominating the action. He's playing aggressive, catching cards and accumulating chips on the way, with 4 players left he had more than half the chips on the table. Toto Leonidas was the first victim, and 10 minutes after that Jason Gray was the 2nd.

That left Benyamine and Greg Jamison heads-up, David with a 3.6:1 chiplead to Greg. A comparison to David and Goliath wouldnt be of much use here, as the David in this story is far from the underdog, and it was not much of a suprise to see him win the event in the end. Benyamine was dominating the heads-up play and when both players got all-in preflop, Jamison flopped the nut straight, but Benyamine had a set. When the board paired on the turn, Benyamine had a full house to make him win his first bracelet and $535,687 ! Benyamine is on a roll this WSOP, making 4 cashes, all top 10 positions. He's had the 7th, 3rd, 10th and now first place during the 2008 WSOP and is now only 2 points behind Jacobo Fernandez for the Player of the Year ranking.

1. David Benyamine $535,678
2. Greg Jamison $331,350
3. Jason Gray $209,855
4. Alfredo "Toto" Leonidas $171,198
5. Mike Matusow $138,063
6. Ram Vaswani $110,450
7. Eugene Katchalov $88,360
8. David Chiu $71,793
9. Hieu "Tony" Ma $55,225

By: Pindarots


Comments (2)

Another Pot Limit Omaha-event has reached its climax, this time it was time for the $1500 Pot-Limit Omaha W/Rebuys. With 320 buy-ins and 1350 rebuys and add-ons, the prizepool was filled with over 2.4 mln dollar. Some familiar faces on the final table, Kyle Kloeckner, our chipleader already cashed in 2nd at event 24, Ted Forrest came 2nd in event 16 and with his 5 bracelets, he doesn’t need much of an introduction. He actually had 6, he once bought a WSOP bracelet for $1500 from Hamid Dastmalchi (the 1992 Main Event bracelet!) for $1500! Dastmalchi was complaining "They say it’s worth $5,000, but I’d take $1,500 for it". Forrest of course instacalled and got the bracelet . That's one of the 2 bracelets he still has, 3 of the other bracelets were stolen from him, while he gave the other one to his daughter.

The other 5-times-bracelet winner at the table doesn't really need an introduction as well, Layne Flack's success at the WSOP started 10 years ago, when he reached his first WSOP final table, and now it's his 13th. Still, 5 wins out of 12 aint bad at all. Phil Hellmuth for example has 40 final tables and 11 bracelets, but hey, that's just because he always gets outdrawn...

Frank Vizza (Cold Spring Harbor, New York) -- 378,000
Dario Alioto (Palermo, Italy) -- 659,000
Tim West (Los Altos, California) -- 187,000
Daniel Makowsky (Zurich, Switzerland) -- 493,000
Kyle Kloeckner (St. Louis, Missouri) -- 845,000
Jacobo Fernandez (Hollywood, Florida) -- 348,000
Layne Flack (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 601,000
Michael Guzzardi (Melbourne, Australia) -- 751,000
Ted Forrest (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 757,000

Kyle Kloeckner wasn’t able to do as well as before, he went out 6th when his deuces full of kings got beaten by Flack's sixes full of deuces. Meanwhile, Layne Flack continued to gather chips, also those of Ted Forrest. He got shortstack and when he got all-in against Makowski, he was up against top set, with only a gutshot + overcards on the flop. Forrest went out 5th, so the 5-times-bracelet-winner stays the owner of 2 remaining bracelets. Dario Alioto was out in about the same hand, he had an openended against Layne Flack, but wasn’t able to catch anything against the Flack's aces. Jacobo Fernandez, who's on a sick roll during this WSOP (he finished 4th, 3rd, 12th and 25th already!) became top of the WSOP Player of the Year-standing, when he got busted out 3rd. 3 final tables, 5 cashes, but still no win, when he got all-in on a flop of with his . Flack hit the jackpot with his and obviously instacalled. No help, which meant Layne Flack was heads-up against Daniel Makowsky, with about a 6:1 chiplead!

Not much later, both players were all-in, Flack with kings, Makowski with A-K-4-4, no help and Layne Flack wins his 6th bracelet out of 13 final tables! He had about 20 rebuys during day one but I guess he got his money back now. 5 years after his last bracelet, he wins one again, and $577,725

Place Name Prize
1st Layne Flack $577,725
2nd Daniel Makowsky $355,050
3rd Jacobo Fernandez $222,659
4th Dario Alioto $180,534
5th Ted Forrest $144,427
6th Kyle Kloeckner $114,338
7th Michael Guzzardi $90,267
8th Tim West $72,213
9th Frank Vizza $54,160

By: Pindarots


Comments (3)

Prize pool of $520,065 was available for grab to any of the 381 players participating in Event #35 ( Seven-Card Stud with a $1,500 buy-in ) of World Series of Poker 2008.
Final table at the beginning:

Seat 1: Levon Torosyan - 114,500
Seat 2: Al Barbieri - 252,500
Seat 3: Max Troy - 88,500
Seat 4: Michael Rocco - 255,000
Seat 5: Giacomo D'Agostino - 123,000
Seat 6: Andre Boyer - 106,000
Seat 7: Jeffrey Siegal - 150,000
Seat 8: Danny Kalpakis - 55,000

Michael Rocco, whose name sound almost like an Italian gangster ( and those for sure could play high-stakes poker ), a regular poker player from Las Vegas, secured his first gold WSOP Bracelet when he announced this is time for him to finish the event:"I'm making a statement right now. If you don't end it in 15 hands or less we're going to be here for a long time!"

Observers were holding their breath and the man did what he promised: on the seventh hand since his statement, Rocco crippled his opponents stack with a straight. A disgusted look appeared at Al Barbieri's face, probably because he know that the final blow was coming and he could do nothing about it:
Barbieri was left with just 40,000 and he had to go all-in the very next hand. Dealers face expression didn't even change for a second, but Rocco's burst of happiness was easily noticeable: "YES!"
Michael Rocco earned $135,753 , unfortunately for him the smallest first prize on this WSOP yet, and his first gold WSOP bracelet!

Results:

1. Michael Rocco $135,753
2. Al Barbieri $83,210
3. Levon Torosyan $50,186
4. Max Troy $37,184
5. Giacomo D'Agostino $28,083
6. Danny Kalpakis $21,842
7. Andre Boyer $16,642
8. Jeffrey Siegal $14,041
9. Charles Moore $11,441

By: Defrag


Comments (1)

Hey Folks!

Here I am watching Eurocup and reading about the World Series of Poker. This results is kinda late, but better late than never.

Event #31

This one was the $2500 No Limit Hold'em 6 handed. I always like these tournaments because I prefer playing 6 handed tables rather than fullring. 1012 was the number of registered players, and $2,327,600 was the prizepool. $528,418 was the prize for the first place, the italian Dario Minieri who managed to win his first bracelet.

Actually it's the 2nd SICK result by Dario this year. He ended up 3rd place in this years EPT San Remo final, for a prize of over $400k, so since the last 3 months Dario has made almost a million in tournaments winners. Nice year eh?

Playing with Minieri on the final table was WSOP bracelet owner Kevin Song, pretty good player who always manage to have good results, and won one of limit events of this years WPT LA Poker Classic. He was eliminated in 4th place of this event.

We can say this final table (that obviously started with SIX players) was weird. First, Minieri started out rocking everything on his way. He won 21 of the first 50 pots. If that isn't a sick number then I don't know what it is. During that sick start, 3 players were eliminated, in the following order: Stuart Marshak, John O'Shea, Kevin Song.

Justin Filtz, Seth Fischer and Dario Minieri were the players alive. That part was weird, every player had their double up moment, but eventually Dario Minieri prevailed and won the whole thing.

Nice result once again for the AC Roma supporter. He earned $528,418 and the bracelet. Seth Fischer was second place for the prize of $330,519.

Take a look at the final results:

1.Dario Minieri $528,418
2.Seth Fischer $330,519
3.Justin Filtz $214,139
4.Kevin Song $141,983
5.John O'Shea $98,923
6.Stuart Marshak $73,784

By: Raidern


Comments (1)

Jose Luis Velador was unstoppable on the final table - just like Juggernaut from popular Marvel comics / movie he was literally cutting through his opponents, reducing their stacks to zero, one after another. He held chip lead for quite some time, and when it came down to five-handed play he had over 50% of all chips on table.
It couldn’t go any other way: Jose Luis Velador won event #32 of the World Series of Poker 2008 (No-Limit Hold'em with a $1,500 buy-in).

Final table at start, with Velador as a massive chip leader:

Seat 1: Dean Bui – 211,000
Seat 2: Justin Hoffman – 138,000
Seat 3: Jose Luis Velador – 1,898,000
Seat 4: Dany Georges – 1,082,000
Seat 5: Utsab Saha – 961,000
Seat 6: Jae Chung – 716,000
Seat 7: Shane Stacey – 640,000
Seat 8: Osmin Dardon – 660,000
Seat 9: Anthony G Signore – 636,000

In the heads-up against Anthony G Signore, Velador was putting a constant pressure on him, not letting his opponent catch a single breath. With an impressive 5:1 chip lead it seemed like a walk in park for Velador. Signore on the other hand didn't plan to give up easily: early into heads-up he doubled up with A9 against pocket sevens. However, Velador only started playing even more aggressive, regaining and expanding his huge chip lead hand after hand.

Finally, Signore decided it was time for his move as he shoved with just to find himself dominated against Velador’s .
The flop gave Velador an undeniable lead, . The rolls out on turn and Signore could only hope for one of remaining tens in the deck for a chop. Not this time, as river brings and Signore stands up and congratulates Velador for his win.

Final results:

1. Luis Velador $574,734
2. Anthony Signore $366,387
3. Osmin Dardon $243,734
4. Jae Chung $204,422
5. Shane Stacey $166,682
6. Dean Bui $132,088
7. Dany Georges $100,638
8. Utsab Saha $77,051
9. Justin Hoffman $53,464

By: DeFraG



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Event #29 ( $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em ) is over: John "Razor" Pham captured the first prize worth of $434,789.

It is yet another pro that wins a gold World Series of Poker bracelet this year - lets see if the streak continues. Players started the final table in the following setup:

Seat 1: Sebastian Segovia - 128,500
Seat 2: Alex Bolotin - 534,000
Seat 3: David Singer - 334,000
Seat 4: Thuy Doan - 369,500
Seat 5: John Phan - 396,500
Seat 6: Matt Vengrin - 1,007,500
Seat 7: Stewart Newman - 398,000
Seat 8: Johnny Neckar - 796,000
Seat 9: Tony Dunst - 333,000

After players dropped out of the tournament and we were down to the final two, no one expected what happened in this heads-up! Johnn Phan started with a slight chip lead over Johnny Neckar, with 2,345,000 chips against 1,950,000 chips.

The heads-up looked like it was not going to end ever. After over six hours of chips passing from hand to hand, amazing reads and complicated bluffs players were tired and decided to finish the tournament in an unexpected way: FLIPAMENTS, BABY!!

And then it started. First hand Phan with vs Neckar's . Board rolled out -- and this way Neckar doubled up, taking a chip lead.
By then, players decided to not look at their cards until the last card is dealt: board tables -- and players flip over their hands: for Phan and for Necker, who loses chip lead.
Phan with the chiplead had a 50/50 to win next hand, as the 'kamikaze trend' didn't change - after board reads -- Neckar doubles up with a for a pair against .

After this players decided to return to normal play, and this time it took only few minutes for players to see a final hand ( which was a preflop all-in ). from Phan against from Necker. This time the better hand held, as lands on the river to finally settle one of the longest heads-up in the history of the WSOP!

Final results:

1. John Phan $434,789
2. Jonathan Neckar $277,452
3. Matt Vengrin $167,973
4. Alex Bolotin $137,343
5. David Singer $112,641
6. Stewart Newman $88,927
7. Thuy Doan $69,165
8. Tony Dunst $54,344
9. Sebastian Segovia $39,523

By: Defrag


Comments (3)

The $10.000 World Championship Limit Hold'em had a limited field of only 218 players, because of the high buy-in and because of the other tournaments playing as well (the $1500 and $3000 No Limit Hold'em tournaments starting at the day before and the same day). This meant it coulf finally be the first Dutch bracelet in the pocket? Rob Hollink was certainly up for it,just behind chipleader Aaron Katz, who already has a limit hold'em bracelet from 2004. Biggest names were without a doubt JC Tran and Andy Bloch, both great versatile players, but neither of them has a bracelet yet!

Seat 1: Andy Bloch (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 370,000
Seat 2: Rob Hollink (Groningen, Netherlands) -- 893,000
Seat 3: Tommy Hang (Seattle, Washington) -- 578,000
Seat 4: Cy Jassinowsky (Johannesburg, South Africa) -- 231,000
Seat 5: Jerrod Ankenman (Avon, Connecticut) -- 441,000
Seat 6: Chris Vitch (San Diego, California) -- 201,000
Seat 7: Brock Parker (Silver Spring, Maryland) -- 166,000
Seat 8: JC Tran (Sacramento, California) -- 247,000
Seat 9: Aaron Katz (Seattle, Washington) -- 1,232,000

Like we always see on limit Hold'em, there aren't that many big swings in stacksizes, it's more like a flow rather than a swing. So it wasnt much of a surprise to see two of the shortstacks being busted out first. That Andy Bloch and J.C. Tran were out in 7th and 5th was a bit of a surprise. Bloch got shortstacked and pushed all-in preflop with , being called by Hollink with , an on the river sealed his fate. J.C. Tran was also eliminated by Hollink, with a -board Hollink bets, Tran calls, the on the turn was followed by a bet from Hollink, Tran moves all-in with his last chips and Hollink calls with a for a flush. The on the river didn't help Tran and he was out in 5th place. Former chipleader Aaron Katz got all-in against Ankenman and Hollink. Both checked it down and Ankenman's pocket queens were enough for the K.O.

Tommy Hang got hung when his got called by Hollink's . He flopped a but the on the turn was enough for Hang to be knocked out 3rd. 33 hands of heads-up play follow, Hollink chipping down Jerrod Ankenman consistently. When Ankenman get's all-in before the flop with , Hollink shows . He flops 2 pair, no help for Ankenman and Rob Hollink wins his first, and Holland's first golden bracelet, and $496,931 ! Finally!

1. Rob Hollink $496,931
2. Jerrod Ankenman $307,380
3. Tommy Hang $194,674
4. Aaron Katz $158,813
5. J.C. Tran $128,075
6. Brock Parker $102,460
7. Andy Bloch $81,968
8. Cy Jassinowsky $66,599
9. Chris Vitch $51,230

By: Pindarots


Comments (4)

Event 27 was played in the $1,500 No-Limit Texas Hold'em format, which is definitely the king of poker. Combined with low buy-in of $1,500, the event attracted 2,706 players!

It was a special day for Vitaly Lunkin - as he only had one cash in his World Series of Poker-career ( 829th finish in the 2006 WSOP Main Event ). This time he will be taking home little more then some pocket money - Russian pro scored a $628,417 first prize!

The final table started after almost 4 hours of play on the last day of the event, since due to a large field tournament directors decided to call it a night with 18 players left on previous day. Final ten players:

1. Philip Yeh - 1,360,000 chips
2. Robert Brown - 310,000 chips
3. Tony Gargano - 285,000 chips
4. Vitaly Lunkin - 1,030,000 chips
5. Trevor Donaldson - 265,000 chips
6. Barry Schultz - 1,340,000 chips
7. Kenneth Terrell - 650,000 chips
8. Richard Alm - 500,000 chips
9. Bobby Firestone - 920,000 chips
10. Brett Kimes - 1,500,000 chips

Tony Gargano knew his tournament life is coming to an end, as he decided to push with Q-2 and got called by Lunkin with AJs. Gargano had two live cards, but no luck and we got a 10th place elimination!

Players were eliminated in rapid fashion when Philip Yeh was the first one to bust out - a classic situation, his pocket queens didn’t manage to beat pocket aces from Kenneth Terell. Shortly after he got it all-in preflop with vs and with no help he left the tournament.
Then players stated dropping like flies: Robert Brown decided to go for 'all or nothing' as he pushed in with while being shortstacked only to see from Donaldson. The better hand kept the lead and we were down to seven players.
Barry Schultz busted in seventh place, after his didn’t hold against . Barry was pleased to see the flop , but on the turn changed the look on his face - he was down to 2 outs to win the hand and any heart for a chop. brings no help to him and he leaves the final table.
Richard Alm lost a classic race: vs his two overcards, . No ace, no eight - no chips. Out in 6th.
When Brett Kimes raised, Trevor Donaldson thought it was a good idea to push all-in as he looked on his cards and saw a monster: AK! But Bobby Firestone got into hand as well, moving all-in after Donaldson. Kimes folded and Donaldson was in a bad spot against Firestone’s KK and as board rolled out nothing changed.
The future champion, Vitaly Lunkin eliminated Kenneth Terrell when his move with was caught and called by from Lunkin. Board rolled out -- and Terrell was out in 4th place.
Down to three handed Bobby Firestone wasn’t expecting such a end: he got all-in with pocket threes against Kimes with AT and ace on flop made his dreams about bracelet vanish in seconds as his stack took a huge beating. Shortly after that he got eliminated when his open-ended straight draw misses against top pair from Lunkin.

The Russian pro was going into heads-up with a 4,7mln to 3,5mln chip lead, but everything could happen. Final blow came for Kimes after he limped / called a preflop bet by Vitaly ( 600,000 ). Flop brings and both player. The turn brings a .
Lunkin bets 1,000,000 and Kimes shoves all-in, while being covered. CALL! for Lunkin who trapped Kimes with ! The on river changes nothing and Lunkin scores $628,417 - his biggest cash prize in poker ever, and a gold WSOP bracelet!



Final results:

1. Vitaly Lunkin $628,290
2. Brett Kimes $387,837
3. Bobby Firestone $277,027
4. Kenneth Terrell $232,702
5. Trevor Donaldson $190,225
6. Richard Alm $149,594
7. Barry Schultz $112,658
8. Robert Brown $84,955
9. Philip Yeh $57,991

By: Defrag


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