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2008 WSOP |
 And then there were nine. Yesterday the World Series of Poker field was finally narrowed to the final nine players. This left most people with a strange, unsatisfied feeling as the WSOP ground to a halt for the first time with no Main Event Champion being crowned. It was sort of like getting a hot fudge sundae with the actual fudge. Regardless of anyone’s feeling on how the setup has been changed to make ESPN happy, we are still looking forward to eventually seeing the final nine play it out until there is a champion. |
 Event 53 was the last under card event before the insanity of the World Series of Poker Main Event took center stage. Anybody who thought that the last day of this event would just wilt under the shadow of the WSOP signature competition and that this would be just another day at the office would be completely wrong. The final day of this event was perhaps one of the most entertaining of the entire World Series of Poker season. |
 David Daneshgar has the sort of resume that most poker players would like for themselves. His lifetime earnings top the 1.5 million mark. He has gotten paid in over fifty of the tournaments he has entered, five of those being first place finishes, and in cash games he has been a consistent money maker. After a while players seated at the casino table with him submissively wet themselves when he makes a bet. The only thing missing from his credentials was a high profile tournament win. In short, there was a bracelet sized hole in his resume that he was looking to fill at this year’s WSOP. Event #52 was his best chance to finally attain this prize. |
 When most casual fans hear the name J.C. Tran, they just assume that this is a player who has more than one World Series of Poker bracelets. A lot of these people would be surprised to hear that coming into Event #49, J.C. Tran has never won a WSOP event before. He has had so much success at the World Poker Tour, and throughout the rest of the sport of poker, it just seems odd that he has never found success on this particular stage. That all changed for him this year. After Event #49, he could finally add that elusive WSOP bracelet to his resume. |
 Sometimes it seems everyone absolutely adores Vanessa Rousso. Despite all the love she was getting from the gallery, Ms. Rousso couldn’t hold on and make it through Day 3 of the World Series of Poker. The thing that probably stung the most is that she lost on hands that would usually have been winners. She was crippled on a hand where her opponent hit both the turn and the river to complete a straight. In the final hand she was all-in with her A-J vs. Q-4, and a Queen fell on the river. |
 Wouldn’t it be interesting if the World Series of Poker final table would include 11 time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth and 10 time champion Johnny Chan? With Phil looking for his 12th piece of WSOP jewelry and Johnny trying to tie Phil, it would have been compelling. Well, it’s not going to happen, both are now out of the tournament. Of course with that story evaporating, another, equally interesting one is taking shape. At the end of the day today we had Tiffany "Hot Chips" Michelle sitting at third in the chip count. |
 It is almost unfair that in a field of players that is bigger than some rural cities, one player commands more attention than the rest of the field. Unfortunately for a lot of lesser known players who want to say, "Hi Mom" on ESPN, Phil Hellmuth is, as always, the story of the day. He started the day with a modest stack of chips, and while finishing the day still in the middle of the pack, he had managed to more than double his starting stack. |
 Phil Hellmuth had probably spent the night before the Event #51 final table working out the choreography for the touchdown dance he was going to perform after accepting his 12th bracelet and working on how to get just the right inflection in his voice when taunting the second place finisher. Alas, it was not to be. The day started with twenty players, and the final table did not get started until after the dinner break. Phil started off the final seating number two in the chip count, and he never would overcome the chip leader Tommy Hang. |
 Ray Romano has became one of the most high profile casualties of Day 2A. Of course he was not alone on the rail today. A whole lot of players with recognizable faces found themselves making the sad transition from competitor to spectator. Ray was playing at the featured table, so his removal from the event was pretty high profile, but among the eliminated were also the following players: Barry Greenstein, Vicky Coren, Bill Edler, John Hennigan, Svetlana Gromenkova, and Paul Wasicka. |
 It’s here - Day Three of the Main Event, the first day of the 2008 World Series of Poker’s biggest showdown when all the players who have a shot at making the money are going to be in the same room. This is the first group that will even be able to consider actually cashing, as only the top 666 players will make the money. Jerry Yang is no longer a contender to defend his crown as he busted out on Day Two B, but other former champions might take a stab at it, such as Joe Hachem, nursing a medium stack as of the time of this writing. |
 If break down the earnings of Richard Lyndaker and Joe Commisso during Event #46, and figure out an hourly rate, they are both still doing pretty well: not quite what Bill Gates makes per hour, but still more than most world leaders. Lyndaker and Commisso started the day as the top two players in terms of the chip count. Lyndaker acted as a hammer during this event, taking out three of the four players that had to be moved out of the way so that he and Commisso could dance uninterrupted. |
 Today was a rare off day at the World Series of Poker so most of the players spent the day taking a well deserved breather while preparing for the next stage of the Main Event. For the most part people were still buzzing about hijinx from Day 1d. For example, General George Patton and the hero of Stalingrad, General Zhukov, were probably spinning like centrifuges in their graves when Phil Hellmuth showed up dressed as an 11 star General. |
 It is Day 41 of the 39th annual World Series of Poker, where the main event is currently running at the Rio All Suites hotel and casino in sweltering Las Vegas, Nevada. Today is the second "Day Two" of the main event, where the survivors from Day One C and Day One D will come together to see who joins the survivors of Day Two A on Day Three. It is not as confusing as it sounds. Today is a good day to take a look at the chip leaders, and point out which of them are pros. |
 So what do Dylan Linde and Steve Austin not have in common with Jennifer Tilly? Well if you include a Y chromosome and a penchant for really cute shoes, the list is probably pretty big. Specifically though, Dylan and Steve are still alive in the Main Event and Jennifer Tilly along with Ms. Duke have been eliminated. Not only are Dylan Linde and Steve Austin still hanging around in the tournament, but they are the Day 1D chip leaders. |
 The Day Ones are all over, and all players got a day off on Monday, so today is the day that all the survivors get to start their quest in earnest, well, half of them, anyway. Today is Day 2A of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event (and day 40 overall of the WSOP) and those that did not bust out from Day 1A and Day 1B get to come back and try to survive. The 20,000 starting stack seems to benefit the pros for the most part, as the better players typically get more mileage out of deeper stack and longer levels. |
 When Phil Hellmuth is hanging around near the top of the chip count, any player with a healthy sense of self preservation should probably start thinking of the best way to sneaking a large dose of NyQuil into Phil’s water bottle. This is of course a joke, but as it turned out some backhanded chemical warfare was not necessary to take the 11 time World Series of Poker bracelet winner out of Event #51. |
 Marty Smyth has cashed just about everywhere in the world. His bank has accepted checks from 2007 Irish Open, 2008 PartyPoker World Open, along with dozens of other tournaments. Rumor has it he even took some cookies off a girl scout by beating her pocket Kings with a set of Aces; of course there are also rumors that the moon landing was faked, and Tom Cruise prefers the company of male hair dressers, so we can’t really rely on a rumor mill for good information. |
 The final table of Event #44 was unusual in one particular respect: none of the players seated around the piece of felt covered furniture had ever won a World Series of Poker bracelet before. Something just looks odd when you see nine players competing for one of the sport’s most prestigious prizes and none of them has been to the promised land before. It’s sort of like watching nine guys who have never had a date chasing after Heidi Klum. |
 Usually when somebody puts on a display like the final table performance of Event #43 champion Martin Klaser, people usually start in with nicknames like "Klaser the Conqueror", "The Great", or the "The Terrible". In the case of the last example "terrible" is a compliment that hints to the fact that he personally eliminated half of the final table. It wasn’t all roses and nicknames for King Kong Klaser: he may have started the final day near the top of the pack, but he had to work his tail off to break away from the pack on Day 2, and put himself in position to win it all. |
 Somebody once made the reasonable observation that paybacks are hell. This was pretty much the theme of the Seniors No Limit Holdem event. Day 2 ended with Dale Eberle knocking Dan LaCourse out of the chip lead on the last hand, and Day 3 ended with Dan LaCourse knocking Dale Eberle out of the tournament and collecting his bracelet on the last hand of the day. If given a chance, Dale would probably have given up his Day 2 chip lead in order to be the one doing the eliminating at the end of Day 3. At the start of Day 3, only 50,000 chips separated Eberle and LaCourse. |
 The cheering section for Marty Smyth as he played for the Event #50 ($10,000 Pot Limit Omaha) championship may as well have been wearing togas and singing "Louie, Louie": they were that loud. This was the sort of rowdy crowd that would have been right at plotting the downfall of Dean Wormer with John Belushi and the boys during the film "Animal House". With these sorts of people cheering him on, it is no wonder that Marty lost track of his hand and didn’t notice that his clubs were working themselves into a bracelet winning flush. According to the new champion, "I didn’t realize I had clubs." |
 Today is the day! One of many "the days" to come, actually. It is the 35th day of the 39th annual World Series of Poker, and the start of the most highly anticipated poker event of the year - the 2008 WSOP Main Event, the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Holdem tournament that every poker player in the world dreams of winning, at least once. The event has been on a steady rise in attendance and popularity since its inception in 1970 when only a handful played. In 2003 Chris Moneymaker won $2.5 million thanks to a $40 satellite that got him a seat in the event; since that moment the poker boom skyrocketed, and attendance and payouts went up along with it - until last year. |
 Ryan Hughes is the first person in WSOP history to have a Stud hi/lo bracelet for each wrist. To accomplish this feat he had to overcome a Day 2 mini-disaster that put a hurt on his stack just before the end of play, and a final day field where he was in 9th place out of the remaining 13 players. Even though starting towards the back of the pack, he was the lead dog by the time the final table rolled around. After having a bit of a stumble, and temporarily losing his lead to Alessio Isaia, Ryan reasserted his dominance by making his first "final table" victim a name synonymous with good, sound poker: David Sklansky. |
 It takes a special type of person to pay a $50,000 buy in in order to test their poker skills in one of the toughest tournament formats in existence. The word most folks would be looking for when describing this type of "special" person, is crazy. Some people could try to make that word stick when describing Scotty Nguyen, but he has five WSOP bracelets draped around his wrists that testify to the fact that this guy knows exactly what he is doing. Scotty spent the last five days playing his heart out in an effort to win what is arguably the toughest of all the WSOP events. |
 There are a lot of things that a body can do with $50,000. Somebody can buy one of the newly designed Dodge Challengers and have enough left for a wussy little, testosterone draining Prius. This would satisfy a person who not only wants to satisfy the NASCAR fan in them, but the eco-Nazi as well. Of course the more responsible people would simply invest the money, while the type of person who kisses babies while trying to buy your vote with a bumper sticker and a catchy little slogan would probably spend every cent of that amount at the famous Nevada Bunny Ranch. Those who played in Event #45 paid $50,000 for the pleasure of being part in this H.O.R.S.E. tournament. |
 Day 34 of the 39th annual World Series of Poker is upon us, and while it isn’t a bracelet event all eyes will be on the Ante Up for Africa Charity Event that will take place today. This $5,000 buy in event won’t carry the prestige of "cashing" at the WSOP or winning a bracelet, but there will be plenty of railbirds wishing they had a seat and were in the action. Not only is the event being held for a great cause - raising money for two charities that will use the funds to help with the crisis in Darfur - but the tables will be choked with celebrity poker players and actors. |
 At the start of Event #48’s final table, Marco Johnson had almost exactly twice as many chips as middle of the pack dweller, Alexandre Gomes. In fact Gomes was firmly ensconced in fourth place when the day started, but these two would eventually meet at the final table. Of course before that could happen, seven other players would have to find their way to the rail, and in most tournaments, nobody is really anxious to be relieved of their place at the final table. This tournament was a little different. At times it looked more like speed dating than a poker tournament. |
 During Event #47, Ryan Hughes started the day with a bit of a handicap. His personal pole position on the day can either be expressed in terms of how many chips he had, or where he was in the pecking order. On Day 2 of play, the decision was made to stop with 13 players left, and considering how things were going for him at that point, if they had played down to a proper final table number on the second day, there was a very real possibility that Ryan would never had even made it to Day 3. |
 It is Day 33 of the 39th annual World Series of Poker, and Las Vegas is still buzzing with the news that Scotty Nguyen won the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event - which some of us predicted! It was pretty scary while there was Erick Lindgren who was hodling the monster chip lead, but the Prince of Poker pulled it off. Today there will be a lot more buzzing as Josh Arieh takes down Event 50 - World Championship Pot Limit Omaha, which is our prediction. Event 50 wraps up today and, as of this writing, Josh has the massive chip lead. |
 Today is Day 32 of the 2008 World Series of Poker, and one $1,500 No Limit Holdem event will kick off while another $1,500 No Limit Holdem event will wrap up and declare a victor. We are more interested in projecting the winner at this point of the wrap up game since we don’t know yet who will sign up to play in the other. The chip leaders in the Event 49 - $1,500 NLHE - include a couple of pros, which might seem counter to what we said in previous WSOP Forecasts that pros would avoid these small NLHE events. Among the chip leaders is young JC Tran, a player that was up and coming a few years ago and arrived at some point last year, when he won a World Poker Tour event. |
 Today the final 8 players will try to win the second most coveted poker prize of the WSOP: the gold bracelet that signifies a victory in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. Event 45, the "World Championship of H.O.R.S.E." as it is known, may come second overall in desirability for the average poker player, but for many pro players it is number one. Our prediction was Andy Bloch. Here’s why. At the start of the season we said Andy was going to do well in every $10,000 event he played in, and so far he’s done very well. He made it to 2nd in the Pot Limit event and pulled down over $250,000, and 7th in the Limit event and picked up over $80,000. In the $5,000 mixed event he made it to 16th. |
 Today is not only Day 30 of the 39th annual World Series of Poker, it is also the kick off day for Event 49 - No Limit Holdem. This $1,500 buy in event is going to go under the radar for most people for a number of reasons. First, there are bigger price tag events, and more interesting game types (for many) going on all around it. But we shouldn’t ignore this - or any - World Series of Poker event for a few reasons. First, any bracelet is a hard won victory. Sure, luck plays a part, but that is the case for every event. |
 Nick Binger had the sort of final table performance that just about every poker player dreams of. He was unstoppable, of the nine players that started the day, he was personally responsible for sending six of them to the rail. Yes it was an impressive run, the sort that allows writers to break out the really good adjectives like "overpowering", "amazing", and "dominating". When it got down to three-handed play, it all went suddenly wrong and we had to start thinking of other words to use like "bewildered", "stunned", and "choke". |
 John Phan added a World Series of Poker bracelet to his resume when he was crowned the Event #29 Champion. Either he thought that having only one wrist decorated with WSOP gold threw off his personal aesthetic symmetry, or the weight of the jewelry was making him list too much to one side is unclear, but he felt the need to quickly add another one to his collection. About one week and eleven events later, Mr. Phan added some balance to his life by strapping the Event #40 bracelet around the other wrist. |
 Even in a Seniors event where someone can just look at the tables and see the people who are the foundation that the modern poker movement is built upon, new faces here can sometimes show up and have their first moment in the WSOP sun. Dan LaCourse is one of these late bloomers. During Day 2 of Event 42 Dan took control of this tournament, and didn’t stop until he was strapping a World Series of Poker World Championship bracelet around his wrist. Considering the fact that he was facing off against 2,218 opponents, a new WSOP record for this event, nobody can say his road was easy. |
 Today is Day 29 of the 2008 WSOP and yet another No Limit Holdem game get started today. What we are going to look at, however, is the end of Event 44, the $1000 Holdem w/ Rebuys event. An event like this that utilizes rebuys, goes through a number of different stages. Any poker tournament will go through different stages but one with rebuys and add-ons has a little extra. The beginning stages of the tournament are typically marked with lots of action, lots of all in moves, and of course many players buy back in after they bust out. |
 One more day down and two more bracelets have been awarded. Midnight on West Coast time feels a whole lot different when your personal biological clock is in sync with a clock set to Eastern Standard Time, but John Phan probably would not have cared if it was midnight in Vegas or seven o’clock in Bulgaria, he was just ecstatic to come away with the victory at Event #40 and add a second WSOP bracelet to his trophy case. This has been a good week for John seeing as the first bracelet was added to his resume less than seven days ago. Some people wait an entire career just for a shot at one piece of WSOP jewelry, John Phan takes down two in less than a week. Now that’s impressive. |
 Today is Day 28 of the 39th annual World Series of Poker and once again two events are beginning today. Event 47, the $1,500 Seven-Card Stud High-Low and Event 46, the $5,000 No Limit Holdem Six Handed. The short handed game, or six handed as they call it at the World Series of Poker, is always an interesting game. Because there are fewer players at the table, it opens up the range of beginning hands - this allows for more action, which is appealing to amateur players who aren’t necessarily used to patience required for other types of Holdem games. |
 Day 2 of Event #39 was stamina testing, life-force draining grind that left Thom Werthmann with a 345,000 chip lead over his nearest competitor. Considering the fact that he started the day with a nice head start, was the only one at the table who had a World Series of Poker bracelet on his wrist, and very few of his opponents had even cashed in a WSOP event before, this was a tailor made situation for him to get a piece of jewelry for his other wrist. Of course, before any of friends can pop the champagne to celebrate his victory, they had best remember the old adage about the best laid plans of mice and men. |
 The final table of Event #38 was one of those affairs where the casual fan probably would have benefited from the players having their names on the back of their shirts like they do in football or hockey. When it comes to "star power" this table was seriously lacking. Thankfully poker is less about the personalities and more about people who know how to play the game. In that particular case, this table was loaded. Davidi Kitai started the day in the middle of the pack but that was a temporary situation at best. While he did not score any of the early eliminations, he still won a number of pots, and was quietly building his war chest while Chris Bell drove most of the final table’s higher profile action. |
 During this year’s World Series of Poker we have seen a couple of people who held the tag "The best player to never win a bracelet" finally shed that particular legacy. Most notable among these people was Erick Lindgren who looked like somebody had kicked a three ton weight off his back after he raised his well earned WSOP bracelet. Unfortunately, that weight fell squarely on David Benyamine who had to be wondering when, after making three final tables this year, his time would come. Well David’s weight would not be that long, it turns out that 37 was his lucky number. In a "come from behind" win, David claimed the Event #37 championship. |
 The story of Event #36 could be written with the simple words that Jesper Hougaard started the day with the chip lead, and that is also how the day ended. Technically this would be accurate, and leaving it as such would save a lot of computer ink, but there were a few more things that happened during this event than one man devouring the competition like a Jurassic Park T-Rex eating a lawyer. At the start players were almost flying from the table at fevered pitch. During the early goings a player was eliminated on an average of about every twelve hands. |
 When your trophy case includes a World Poker Tour stud championship along with a World Series of Poker bracelet that represents your skills in stud as well, you have had a pretty good career. This is probably what Mike Rocco is thinking today after winning Event #35, the Seven-Card Stud final. After adding a WSOP championship to his already impressive resume, all that is probably left for him is to get engaged to Pam Anderson. |
 Anybody who doesn’t think that Layne Flack is one of the best poker players on the planet probably also believe that Tiger Woods is just an okay golfer with a good upside. Since 1999 Mr. Flack has been as dominant in the sport of poker as just about anyone else that can be imagined. At the end of Event #34 he was the person draping a World Series of Poker bracelet around his wrist. That makes a total of six since 1999. By way of comparison, Phil Hellmuth has won five since that time, Johnny Chan has won five, Erik Seidel has scored 4, and Doyle Brunson has claimed 2. |
 When you are sitting at a World Series of Poker final table and look across the felt to see Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Marcel Luske, and Annie Duke staring back at you, it is a foregone conclusion that you are going to have a very long day (or a very short one). Fortunately for Sebastian Ruthenberg he came into this final table with a substantial chip lead, and some carry over momentum from the previous day’s play. |
 Davidi Kitai won Event #38 ($2,000 Pot Limit Holdem). The final table didn’t seem to sport any players who would be gracing the cover of Bluff magazine anytime soon, but despite the lack of a big name player, the entire field was players of a good repute as solid professionals. This made just about everything a dog fight, including the final table. Davidi had to struggle against Chris Bell for over five hours before finally claiming the bracelet as his own. |
 Today is Day 27 of the 39th annual World Series of Poker, and it is also the Big Day. Not that Big Day - when the Main Event starts - but the other one. This is the day that the $50k World Championship H.O.R.S.E. begins, and all eyes will be on those tables. Except, that is, those over at Event 44. Not only is today the start of the big H.O.R.S.E. it is also the start of the $1,000 No Limit Holdem with Rebuys. Now, it may seem these events are worlds apart - and they are - but each is going to draw a lot of attention for different reasons. |
 There was one constant sound at the final table of Event #37 ($10,000 Omaha Hi-Low Championship). It was the sound of Mike "The Mouth" Matusow giving his opinion on everything from what potential cards his opponents were holding to folk remedies for post nasal drip. There were a number of people eliminated from this tournament ahead of Mike, and a number of them looked like they pulled their own plug just to get away from the sound of Matusow’s voice. To his credit, Mike had a chance to back his big talk up with a win; especially when he tripled up on one of the final table’s first hands. |
 Today is Day 26 of the 39th annual World Series of Poker, cranking down the days to the Main Event in a couple of weeks, and there is only one event kicking off today: Event 43 Pot Limit Omaha High-Low Split 8 or Better. Wait, didn’t David Benyamine just win this event? Close, but no. Benyamine won the World Championship event with the $10k buy in just a day or so ago - and it was Omaha High Low Split 8 or Better, but this is a different event. The fact they have this event along with the other tells us something about the state of poker in general, and the WSOP in particular. |
 Most of the time a World Series of Poker final table is a dramatic back and forth battle where chip leaders aren’t chip leaders for very long, and the underdog has as much chance as the favorite. Event #32 was not one of these tournaments. From the moment Jose Luis Velador sat down at the final table it was sort of like watching somebody with a shot gun taking out a room full of people armed with only pop tarts and foul language. This was the sort of rare domination of the table that only happens once or twice during a WSOP season. |
 Dario Minieri resembles a hobbit that has been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Much of this isn’t his fault. He probably picked up the metabolism of humming from one, or both of his parents. And who knew that his favorite football squad, Associazione Sportiva Roma, would have the same colors as Mr. Potter’s Gryffindor house. Of course if he had a few more hot fudge sundaes and stopped wearing that gold and burgundy scarf wherever he went, perhaps he would be taken a bit more seriously. Of course people looking at his relatively silly outer vestments and underestimating him might be part of a master plan. |
 Rob Hollink has made quite a reputation as an Omaha specialist, but in tournaments when he goes outside of his Omaha box, he seems to be quite successful. Today he has added a World Series of Poker World Championship bracelet to the rest of his trophies. Rob went into the final table second only to Aaron Katz in the chip count. On his way to the winner’s circle Hollink eliminated four of his opponents including the chip leader. |
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