Event 38 - $2000 Limit Hold'em
As usual, around 10% of the players that enter the tournament end in the money, which meant 45 out of the 446 would do that in this event. Amongst those were players like Phil Hellmuth, Alex Kravchenko and Daniel Negreanu. However, neither of them made it to the final table, which was dominated by the Dutch Marc Naalden. He held the chiplead from when it got to 32 players and only abandoned it for a short while heads-up, but nothing could stop the "Needleking". Holding 75% chips when it got to 4-way, and starting the heads-up with Steven Cowley with a 9:1 chiplead it all seemed easy. Cowley however did put up a bit of a struggle, but Naalden managed to regain the lead and win his first bracelet, and the second for The Netherlands.
1. Marc Naalden $190,770
2. Steven Cowley $117,902
3. Ian Johns $77,576
4. Tommy Hang $54,182
5. Alex Keating $39,977
6. Danny Qutami $31,088
7. Jared O'Dell $25,439
8. Jameson Painter $21,819
9. Rep Porter $19,594
Event 39 - $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em
Event 39 was one of those low-buyin NLHE-events that always attracts quite a lot of people. Not as much as the 6000 that got to enter the $1000 event earlier in this series, but with 2,715 the field was still very big and there were just no clear favorites for this one. For Ray Foley, it all went according to plan. He was chipleader throughout most of day 2 and he came into the final table 2nd in chips behind Michele Iacovone. Some other familiar faces were also still in, like Nam Le, Raymond "position doesn't matter for floating when you're as good as I am" Davis and Brandon Cantu. That same Cantu later managed to get heads-up with Foley and it looked like he would win his second bracelet. Being allin with the chiplead and K9 vs TT while hitting the on the fop almost sealed it. But with the on the turn, Foley managed to double up and regain the chiplead once more. Not much later they get all-in on the J-9-3 flop with QJo against Cantu's J7o. 2 blanks on the turn and river and the 37-year old Chrisler Financial employee wins the event and $657,969.
1. Raymond Foley $657,969
2. Brandon Cantu $403,951
3. Wei Mu $269,609
4. Alex Jacob $190,857
5. Spalding Tyler $143,421
6. Jonathan Markham $114,514
7. Chairud Vangchailued $96,355
8. Richard Lutes $85,608
9. Patrick O'Connor $80,049
Event 40 - $10,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Omaha
It looked like the 4th double-bracelet-winner would come from this event. When Vitaly Lunkin got heads-up in this pro-packed event (players like Barry Greenstein, Nenad Medic, David Williams, Howard Lederer, Josh Arieh and others made it to the final table), he was about dead even in chips against Matt Graham. Some smaller pots follow and after 1 and a half hour, a decisive pot seems to emerge. Lunkin and Graham are both all-in, with AK+rags against QQ+rags but it turned out that those rags would make the difference. Holding A-K-5-3 while flopping A-2-4, Lunkin wins a huge pot which gives him a 8.25mln to 600k chiplead! However, Graham gets all-in again and again, winning all these hands and doubling up a few times to even regain the chiplead! When they later get all-in on the turn of the board, he holds a set of tens against the gutshot and flushdraw of Lunkin. The ace on the river brings no help and Matt Graham wins the event at around 4.30 AM. Lunkin adds a nice second place to his already impressive list of results this year, knowing just missed his second bracelet of this year. For Graham, it was his 2nd bracelet after he won the $1500 Limit Hold'em Shootout last year.
1. Matt Graham $679,379
2. Vitaly Lunkin $419,832
3. Van Marcus $278,409
4. Robin Keston $196,993
5. Ferit Gabriellson $148,438
6. Stefan Mattsson $118,462
7. Joshua Arieh $99,855
8. Richard Austin $88,680
9. Barry Greenstein $82,746
By Pindarots. Coverage of events 41 and 42 will follow later today.
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