For anyone who is waiting to see the main event on TV when ESPN begins its coverage later this month, read no further. The rest of you who want to keep updated can follow along.
It is the end of Day 7 for all of the 27 players remaining and the 11th total day for the tournament. The biggest news has to be the presence of Phil Ivey who is 4th in at the end of the day. He has put his large chip stack to work by punishing the rest of the field. It will be his first cash in the Main Event since being bounced on a bad beat by Chris Moneymaker in 2003, a hand that was immortalized as one of the best hands of the year. He has to be the odds on favorite to win the title as he is one of only a few professionals remaining. He is within firing distance of the chip leader, Darvin Moon, who has over 20 million in chips. Ivey sits with just over 11 million.
Another notable pro who is remaining in the tournament is Antonio Esfandiari. With a little over 4 million in chips is on the short end of the field. Esfandiari has seen little success in the WSOP and has a small fan base thanks to other televised poker events such as High Stakes Poker and the WPT. He has a very good skill set and can be dangerous at any point in a tournament so he is one to watch out for, but “The Magician” needs to have a few tricks up his sleeve to take down this bracelet.
After today, the ”November Nine” will be set, so look for updates on the tournament along with player profiles right here.
Regardless of who the player is, it is almost gratifying when you see them get knocked out trying to put a ‘fancy move’ on the table. Hellmuth did exactly that and instead of chasing down his next bracelet, he will once again be watching the final table of the Main Event from the rail. Hellmuth got a little greedy with his AA and he paid the dearest of prices in elimination.
Mourshaki was in early position and fired out a raise of 22,000. It folded around to Hellmuth who was in late position and he flat called. This is all hindsight of course, but just calling gave everyone behind Hellmuth, including two blinds, the odds to make the call regardless of what their hands were. With the amount of money he had left, the move here was for him to push all in and try and get heads-up. Instead, he wanted as many people as possible in the pot and that never bodes well for AA.
Once Hellmuth called, 3 more players joined the dance to a flop of Jc10d5c. This is precisely the type of flop that you do not want to see with AA. Flush and straight draw on the board and someone very well may be sitting with J10. Hellmuth was about to find out the hard way that he made a mistake and it was going to cost him the tournament.
Once the flop hit, Jenkins was first to act and immediately pushed all in. The original raiser and the one person that Hellmuth would have more than likely been heads-up against, Mourshaki, folded his hand and then Hellmuth pushed the rests of his chips into the pot (110,000). Gomez let his hand go and Hsiung made the call putting both players at risk for elimination.
The cards were turned and Hellmuth saw his worst nightmare come true. Jenkins had flopped an open ended straight and was holding 89h, Hellmuth of course had AA with the A of clubs and Hsiung was holding the winning hand at the moment, Jh10c. The turn card fell and gave Jenkins the lead with a 7d. Hellmuth was drawing dead for the outright win at this point and Hsiung was down to 4 outs. However, he had Hellmuth covered so Phil had a small shot at the rest of the board pairing or possibly hitting one of the remaining two A’s to get a small piece and survive. Neither happened as the river was a 3s and Phil was shown the rail. If Phil had pushed all in preflop, he probably would have been able to get Mourshaki isolated and would more than likely have lived to see another day.
While Hellmuth was being shown the door, Ivey has continued on and is not one of the chip leaders of the tournament. He now has 1,276,000 and if far and away the best of the remaining 400 or so players. The overall chip leader is Matt Affleck who has accumulated 1,819,000. It will be interesting to see how he holds up as the numbers get lower and he starts to face off with the likes of Ivey. Other notables that are still alive are Dan Harrington, Joe Sebok, Antonio Esfandiari, Kenny Tran and Vitaly Lunkin.
All of a sudden, second bracelet is becoming a common headline theme in this year’s WSOP. Not only that, but Full Tilt Pros in particular are constantly showing up on leader boards and winning tournaments. The latest addition is of course Greg Mueller as he took down the Limit Hold’em Shootout event. He now has two bracelets this year and gets to add another $194,854 to his bankroll.
While Mueller was at the top of the leader board throughout this tournament, the heads up battle was anything but easy. Marc Naalden gave him everything he could handle and actually looked as though he was going to win this at one point. The cards ended up changing and Mueller was able to take down the event. Naalden won $120,614 for second place.
In other tournaments…
The $50 K H.O.R.S.E. Event continues on and they are now down to 19 players and should be playing down to a champion on Monday. Vitaly Lunkin continues to impress with his play and while he was not able to dramatically increase his overall chip lead, he is still in first place with 1,527,000. Freddy Deeb is having a wonderful tournament and you can expect to continue to see him among the leaders. The one notable downfall has been Gus Hansen. At one time, he was way ahead of the field, but he has since come back to reality and now only has 801,000 in chips.
Event 51 players have already played to the max time for the last two days and will be back early on Monday to try and finish this event. We knew they were in trouble with a low elimination number in day one and with 30 players left, they will have to come back at 1pm to play down to a winner. Thibaut Durand has taken over the lead and has 1,650,000 in his stack.
The Triple Chance Tournament has been a lot of fun to watch and has some interesting names at the top of the leader board. Of course, Jeff Lisandro is making his customary appearance, but Antonio Esfandiari is finally being heard from and sits in the top 5. John Juanda is also still kicking in this one, but his stack is screaming for help with only 42,600 in chips.
Event 53 is well under way and has only 143 players left in the field of 467. Allie Prescot is the current chip leader with 52,500, but there is still some high powered talent close behind. Most notably, Annie Duke is sitting in 6th place with 36,600 and Daniel Negreanu rounds out the top 10 with 33,100 in chips.
All of a sudden, second bracelet is becoming a common headline theme in this year’s 
