Greg Mueller Captures His Second Bracelet of the 2009 WSOP

Posted by pokerguru on June 30, 2009

Greg Mueller Captures His Second Bracelet of the 2009 WSOP 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.

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Filed Under: WSOP 2009

Tags: Allie Prescot, Annie Duke, Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Negreanu, Full Tilt Pros, Gus Hansen, H.O.R.S.E., Jeff Lisandro, John Juanda, Limit Hold’em Shootout, Marc Naalden, The Triple Chance Tournament, Thibaut Durand, WSOP

John-Paul Kelly Wins Event 20

Posted by pokerguru on June 12, 2009

The heads up action did not last long as Tschirch got a little aggressive with his A5 and ended up shipping his chips over to Kelly. This table had been playing quickly all night long so it was no surprise at how fast these two got the championship settled. Tschirch will get $120,102 for 3 days work, but that is little comfort for getting to heads up and coming up short at the WSOP.

The final hand had Tschirch on the button and raising to 55,000. Kelly came over the top and made it 150,000 to go. Tschirch made the call to a flop of 8c5d4s. Kelly put out another 155,000 and Tschirch again made the call. Kelly upped the ante when a Qc hit the turn and made it 300,000 to go. Tschirch pushed all in and Kelly could not get his chips in there fast enough. When the cards were turned, we saw the reason why, he was sitting on AQ in the hole. This had to be a heart breaker for Tschirch as he had actually hit the flop holding A5 in his hand. The river was a harmless 2c and that was all she wrote. In addition to the bracelet, Kelly takes home $193,434.

In other tournaments…

Event 21 is still motoring along, but it is going to be quite a while before we have a winner in this one. 8 players are still left and James Van Alsytne has almost half of the chips in play with 1,059,000. While he has never won a bracelet, he does have 11 WSOP cashed under his belt and over $500,000 in earnings. It is unlikely the pressure will make him buckle and he should finally get his first WSOP championship.

Event 22 is only about halfway through this round. The No Limit Hold’em Shootout tournament is a SNG masters dream and at the end of the round we will only have 10 players remaining. At this point, there are still about 50 players seated at the table and play is moving along fairly slowly for this type of tournament.

Event 23, the 2-7 Lowball Draw tournament is the buzz saw of the day. They are already down to just 27 players with a lot of short stacks hanging around. Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow still has chips in front of him, but he is way down on the leader board. The name to be feared at this point is John Juanda as he can be absolutely deadly with a stack. He is currently sitting at 181,000 and very close to the overall leader.

Another name that is way up on the board that has not been around for some time is Jean-Robert Bellande. You may remember him from a circuit event in 2005 as he was giving Jennifer Harmon the business at the table and he eventually came away with third. He does have a few cashes since, but the closest he has come to winning anything is last year with a second place finish in the Limit Hold’em Shootout.