In what has to go down as one of the greatest final tables and heads-up matches in WSOP history, David Bach finally ended the tournament at 10:00am Tuesday morning. It took 13 hours to get down to the final two and then an incredible 7 hours of heads-up play before we could crown a winner. If you read some of the earlier posts, we had touted Bach because of his superior 7 card stud play and that is exactly what enabled him to chip away at Hanson’s stack. Bach wins a monstrous $1,276,802 for the win and one of the most prestigious bracelets of the year.
In other tournaments…
While the talk of the day was the $50k H.O.R.S.E. tournament, once could not overlook the bracelet that was won by Abe Mosseri in the Triple Chance No Limit Hold’em Event. Once the event went to heads-up, he used timely aggression again and again on Masayoshi Tanaka and continued to grind away at his stack. By the time the last hand was dealt, Tanaka had the equivalent of a bb gun in the middle if Iraq. He can console himself with the $102,313 he takes home for second place. Abe fattens his bank account with a healthy $166,151.
There will be one more bracelet awarded tonight in Event 54. This one will go until late (or early depending upon how you look at it) in the morning as there are still 6 players holding onto chips and each and every one of them has over 1,000,000. Sergey Konkin holds the chip lead with 3,500,000.
The last event that is going on is Event 56. Lots of action in this one as it is a 6 handed tournament. A fat $1,003,218 first place prize awaits the winner and the way it looks now, we just may have a big name pro sneak through and snatch one. David Chiu, Shaun Deeb and Phil Hellmuth are all still alive. The overall chip leader is Matthew Waxman with 1,150,000 in chips.
In a show of genuine emotion, Ville Wahlbeck celebrated his countries first win of a WSOP event. He could not have picked a better year with the new bracelet ceremony reminding everyone of the Olympic presentation of a medal. There won’t be a dry Finnish eye in the house as their national anthem is played. Wahlbeck defeated David Chiu who will walk away with $304,176 and second place played a great tournament, but destiny was with Ville.
The final hand of the tournament was during at Omaha-8 game. Chui was holding A5910 to Wahlbeck’s AQ88. He made a pre-flop all in move and Wahlbeck made the call. Both players missed the flop of JJ5, but the turn but Chui ahead with a 10d. However, Walhbeck picked up additional outs as he could now hit a straight in addition to his Q. Of course, the river hits continued to pop and a K showed up to give Wahlbeck both the straight and a World Championship.
Event 11 finally came to a close with Anthony Harb becoming yet another first time bracelet winner. In a tournament that seemed destined for a big name player to take down, Harb put away the likes of TJ Cloutier, Tom McEvoy and Phil Hellmuth. For his efforts, he not only gets the bracelet, but an influx of $569,199 to his bank account.
The final hand of the tournament ended when Rho flopped tow pair, but waited for the turn to make his move. If he would have gone all in off the flop of 98K, we will never know, but the J that hit on the turn sealed his fate. He pushed and Harb made the instacall with a Q10 sitting in his hand. The river was a blank (for once) and Harb won the bracelet. As the tournament director tried to affix the jewelry, Harb gave the classic quote, “Look how fat my wrist it.” Well it just gained a little more in circumference with a great new bracelet.
In other tournaments…
Phil Ivey was making a legitimate attempt at his second bracelet in Event 13, but just as the break was coming he managed to get the worst of it in a huge hand and will be the short stack as play resumes. They are down to 20 players from the original 1088 person field and will play to a bracelet on Sunday. Greg Merkow now leads the field with 932,000 in chips. Daniel Negreanu has once again made it to one of the top spots of the leader board in Event 14. With only 11 players left, he is by far the best at the tables. Daniel took this event down last season and it would be absolutely incredible to see him manage to do the same again here. After a miserable 2007 WSOP, Daniel bounced back with some decent success in 2008 with 5 cashes, 2 final tables and one bracelet. He has already had two cashes (including this one) in this year’s event and if he can manage to win the bracelet here, he is poised at a run of his best WSOP ever.
Events 15 and 16 both wrapped up their first days in fine fashion. Only 165 players remain from the original field of 655 in Event 15. Calixto Clemenceau leads the way with 186,300 in chips. Event 16 has also had a very good amount of eliminations as the late starting tournament of the day. Only 97 players remain from a starting field of 359. That is rather unbelievable considering the fact that this is a Seven Card Stud Event. David Levi is at the top of the leader board with 49.600 in chips, but there are still a ton of big name players left in this one including Jason Mercier (already has a bracelet this year), Dutch Boyd, Jeff Lisaandro, Thor Hansen and Eli Elezra. The pros still have a legitimate shot at taking this one down.
Event #11 has been slow going all along and after over 8 hours of play, they are still going at it. As of this posting, the players were just granted an hour and a half for dinner and then the final four will play until they have a winner. Once again, our endorsement has been the kiss of death. Scott Hall was humming along nicely and then the equivalent of the Sports Illustrated jinx hit him and he went out in 7th. We are going to leave the fate of the game up to the poker gods at this point and just give you the chip counts of the final four.
1) Anthony Harb – 2,500,000 2) Peter Rho – 2,500,000 3) Adam Adler – 2,200,000 4) Jim Geary – 1,950,000
Event 12 is also moving pretty slowly and has finally gotten down to 8 players. Huck Seed is no longer the chip leader at the $10,000 World Championship Mixed Event, but he is still hanging up at the top of the leader board. There is still a long way to go in this one and they will be sitting there until they have a winner. It is unlikely that this one will be over any time before 2 or 3 in the morning. Here are the chip counts for the final nine.
1) Ville Wahlbeck – 1,250,000 2) Scott Dorin – 925,000 3) David Chiu – 910,000 4) Huck Seed – 875,000 5) James Van Alstyne – 640,000 6) Mark Gregorich – 480,000 7) Todd Brunson – 295,000 8) Mike Wattel – 220,000
In other tournaments… Event 13 has finally gotten to under 100 players and now stand at 79 remaining. The money hit at 117, so the pace should pick up a bit at this point until we get to the really serious money. There are a ton of short stacks here and I cannot see the hanging around since they have already made the cash. Alan Keating is the current chip leader as of this posting.
Event 14 is almost at the money with only 39 players remaining and 36 getting paid. Once that bubble has been burst, play will definitely accelerate. Lots of big names are still floating around in this one including Negreanu and Greenstein. The fact that they are both atop the leader board spells misery for the rest of this field. Shawn Buchanan is the current chip leader in this event.
Events 15 and 16 just started today and still have huge fields left. Action is moving along very nicely in Event 15 with about half the field already out since early this afternoon. Event 16 has just gotten underway so there is no available information on that event. More information will be posted after the two bracelets of the evening have been awarded.
