Wahlbeck Barely Misses His Second Bracelet as Schulman Fends Him Off and Earns His First Championship

Posted by pokerguru on June 13, 2009

The youngsters are at it again. Schulman took down his first WSOP Tournament, but it is surely not his last one. This kid is packed with confidence and this win could catapult him into stardom in the poker world. 2-7 Draw Lowball is not a very popular game, so this field was packed with just about every big name in poker that you can think of. While the field was the smallest yet, he truly earned this win.

The final hand of the tournament had Schulman on the button and opening for 75,000. Wahlbeck then pushed it up to 250,000 and was called. Both players went with one card on the draw and Wahlbeck continued his aggressiveness by pushing all in. Schulman almost fell over getting his chips in there as quick as possible and was already making the victory sign. He flipped over 7-5-4-3-2 for the perfect hand and Wahlbeck could do nothing but take solace in the second place finish and $172,864 that went with it. Schulman collected @279,742, a huge payday for a 96 man field.

Event 22 is still a long way from being decided with 6 players remaining in what is sure to be a marathon session. Chips are getting pushed back and forth and there are really only two short stacks on the table at the moment. Dig in for a long night boys! The current leader is Jeffery Carris with 1,066,000 in chips.

In other tournaments…

Event 24 has slowed down dramatically from the pace that they had played at yesterday. To say that they are moving at a snail’s pace would be a dramatic understatement. The tournament is supposed to get down to a single table tonight, but it looks like this crew will be coming back early tomorrow to get the job done. Glenn McCaffrey is still hanging tough in third place with 330,000 in chips, but the overall lead has been taken over by Ernst Hermans with a total of 355,700.

Phil Ivey has absolutely taken over Event 25, the mixed game of Omaha & 7 Card Stud Hi/Low 8 or better. He is currently sitting on just over 130,000 in chips and is playing perfect cards. There are still about 80 players left to go, so it would be a little premature to crown him the champ already. However, with him on the lead, it is going to be very difficult for anyone with a short stack to play against him. You can expect to see elimination after elimination on his table as he will make them play for their stack when they get involved in a hand with him.

Both Event 26 and Event 27 have gotten under way and are relatively short fields. The Limit Hold’em Event only has a field of 643 and about a third of them have already been railed. That is a pretty significant number with the tournament being a limit tournament. The field for Event 27 is still floating in and should be in the 200 player range. Expect to see a lot of big names in this tournament going after the bracelet with such a short field.