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.
As predicted, we are seeing a lot of movement on the leader board at the $50k H.O.R.S.E. Championship Event. Some of the recent eliminations include Doyle Brunson, Eric Lindgren, Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein and Daniel Alaei. Hasan Habib has slipped all the way down to one of the short stacks and Erik Sagstrom has taken over as the overall leader with 1,250,000. This tournament still has a long way to go with over 30 players still seated at the tables.
Gus Hanson continues to play strong and is currently sitting at 725,000 in chips. Vitaly Lunkin is once again putting in a very strong performance and is currently located in the top ten with 560,000. There are still a lot of big names left in this tourney and you will probably continue to see a lot of movement as this is one of the most volatile games you will see. Every game guarantees a lot of action and your chip leader very well may be a short stack within 5 hands. They are going to play this one till the early hours of the morning.
In other tournaments…
The Limit Shootout Event is down to 6 players, but the stacks are fairly even among the top 3. This is another tournament that you can expect to go on for quite a bit tonight and not see a winner until after midnight. The current leader is Greg Mueller with 950,000. Marc Naalden and Millie Shue round out the top three and are both within less than 200,000 of Mueller.
The dinner break has sounded in event 51 and there are still well over 100 players alive. You will not recognize many of the names in this one as a lot of the pros have stayed away from these $1,500 tournaments as the WSOP has played on. Huge fields have given them all problems and they seem to be sticking with the higher buy ins and other poker variations for the time being. They are going to have enough problems in the Main Event so why sit down with this aggravation now. The one big name that is making his way up the leader board is Men Nguyen. We haven’t heard much from him so far this year so this may be his warm-up for next week’s tournament.
The Triple Chance No Limit Event is at full steam and has had a surprising amount of eliminations already. They started with 854 players and are close to 300 eliminations so far. Overall chip stacks are not available, but a quick glance around the room says that a lot of the pros were taking advantage of the ability to have the free triple re-buy and play very aggressively. Don’t be surprised to see some big names on the leader board at the end of the day in this one.
At one point, it looked like some of the bigger names in poker were going to take over this tourney, but they all fell off on one quick rush and it was left up the lesser known players to grab all of the glory. Claiming to be a limit specialist, Naalden more or less dominate this tournament from start to finish except for one moment when they were heads up where the lead was finally taken away from him. He managed to keep it together and stay calm though and eventually came back to win the tournament.
The final hand had him behind before the flop, but his Q8 quickly caught up and passed the A5d when the flop came out Q910. The turn was a 4d and another 10 came on the river and that was that. Naalden takes home a healthy $190,770 from this very short field of 446 players. Steven Cowley finished in second place and won $117,902.
In other tournaments…
Event 39 is down to 26 players for the final day and they will be back early to get this one finished. The huge field of 2715 players was once again dominated by amateurs and the biggest name left in the field is one of the young starts of the game, Brandon Cantu (270,000). He has a lot of work left though if he is going to grab a bracelet here as Michele Iacovone currently holds the chip lead with 1,605,200.
The World Championship of Pot Limit Omaha is still going strong with 25 players standing tall. Noah Schwartz (1,220,000) has a huge lead and is double the second place player. There is still a lot of talent left in this field and having just gotten under the bubble, play should be pretty spicy to start the session. David Williams, Howard Lederer and Barry Greenstein are all still alive in this one.
Day 2 of the NL Hold’em Shootout is set to get underway with 30 players remaining. They are all now in the money and the infamous Phil Ivey is still alive. Everyone will start this round with 150,000 in chips. Jennifer Harman, David Pham and John Monnette are also still alive.
Day 2 of Event 42 will also get started with only 153 of the 412 original players. We are going to see some double dipping here are several players that still have stacks in this one are also in the shootout. It is always entertaining to watch these guys sprinting from table to table trying to catch a hand and stay alive.
Jeff Lisandro is arguably having the best WSOP of any player in the field so far this season. The funniest thing is that he is doing it in every game other than NL Hold’em. His name is showing up regularly in just about every other game. He continued his dominance on Saturday night by taking down the World Championship Seven Card Stud Hi/Low 8 Event. He was among the leaders from day one and bided his time until they were heads up. For three and a half hours he battled with Farzas Rouhani who had the chip lead going in.
Doyle Brunson and Scotty Nguyen also made a nice run in this tournament and at one point, it looked like the possibility of 4 previous bracelet winners fighting it out. Scotty went card dead and Doyle slowly faded and went out in 7th position. This may have been his best shot of the WSOP for number 11 because we are now only 2 weeks away for the circus. The fields are starting to get larger and larger and the pros will continue to have trouble working their way through these humongous fields of amateurs that put targets on their heads the moment they see a pro seated next to them.
The other bracelet winner on the evening was Jordan Smith who outlasted 1694 other players to take down Event 36 and the $586,212 that goes along with it. At one point, this tournament seemed like it was never going to end as day 2 was just brutally slow. However, Jordan Smith stuck to his guns and continued to wear down the field until he has a massive cheap lead and the other player’s fates were sealed. This was his first bracelet, but he is no stranger to the WSOP with 12 other cashes to his credit.
In other tournaments…
At one point, it looked like there was no stopping Phil Hellmuth, but after making a humongous comeback and getting atop the leader board, the cards went the other way on his and he made his way to the rail. The played down to the final table on Saturday Night and will get back at it at 2pm to decide a winner. Marc Naalden is the current chip leader with 755,000 in his stack.
Day 2 of Event 39 will get under way with a lot of work to come before they see a final table. This was an amateur dominated field as most of the pros were eying up the Pot Limit Omaha Championship later in the evening. Mohsin Charania is the current chip leader with 144,100.
Event 40, the World Championship of Pot Limit Omaha got underway and as predicted, it was packed with all the superstars of poker. The leader board is littered with names like David Williams, Josh Arieh, Steve Zolotow and Barry Greenstein. Nate Lindsay currently leads the way with a huge chip lead of almost 200,000 over the second place player. He will start the day off with 482,200 and he is going to need every last one of them to fight off this hungry field of professionals.
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.
