The cards are in the air at the 2009 World Series of Poker, with the first bracelet being awarded and the special 40th anniversary tournament exceeding expectations.
Day 2 of the $500 Casino Employees Event wrapped up on Thursday night with the awarding of the first bracelet at this year’s tournament. In a drop from last year’s 980 player field, 866 runners came to the line for the start of the tournament on Wednesday. Action was quick throughout the day as the field was winnowed down to the 81 players who would cash in the event at the end of play on Wednesday night.
The 81 survivors came back on Thursday afternoon guaranteed to take something home for their efforts, but all were looking to take home the champion’s share of $83,833 and the first bracelet of this year’s WSOP. A Swedish dealer, Felix Carli, held the chip lead at the start of the second day of action but he would eventually be eliminated from the event in fifteenth place. In all, it took approximately eight hours to determine the final table in the Casino Employees Event.
The final table consisted of four poker dealers, two dealers of other games, a bartender, a bar back and a floor man. Overall, the final table players represented casinos from Arizona, Nevada, Iowa and California. Over the next four and a half hours, the players slowly dropped away until two men, the Mandalay Bay’s bar back Paul Peterson – who entered Day Two in fifth place – and the Palms Casino’s bartender Andrew Cohen – who was in third place as the day began – earned the right to face off against each other heads up.
Cohen held a 5:1 edge over Peterson as the heads up match began and he controlled the action during the final battle. On the final hand, Peterson pushed the remainder of his chips to the center with an A-Q and Cohen called with pocket sixes. Once the board blanked out, Cohen had captured the first championship of this year’s World Series.
Tremendously emotional over his victory, Cohen was able to comment, “(This is)…the one thing that I always wanted – for any poker player, this is it. I told all these guys here, it’s not about the money to me, and I’m not even a rich guy. I’m a bartender. And, I don’t care about the money. You can always get money. It’s the bracelet that counts.” Cohen will be awarded his bracelet this afternoon on the Bracelet Ceremony Stage inside the Amazon Room.
As the first final table wrapped up for this year’s WSOP, attention turned to the special 40th Anniversary No Limit Hold’em tournament, Event #2 on the schedule. The $40,000 buy in ensured that there would be a quality field for the tournament, but many at the Rio were concerned that the current economic situation would keep many high rollers away from the event. Those concerns were crushed when 201 players popped the $40K to play, eclipsing the WSOP official estimates of 150 players and building the largest non-Main Event prize pool of $7,718,400.
Event #2, which is scheduled to play out over four days, did have the expected star-studded field. Perhaps the possibility of being at the final table of one of the events that will be show during ESPN’s coverage of the World Series brought the players out and, once the players reached their chairs, they wasted no time getting down to business.
One of the early players eliminated was online phenom Tom “durrr” Dwan, as he pushed on the turn with a pair of sixes and potential straight draw into the pocket Kings of David “The Dragon” Pham. Once the river blanked out, Dwan was an early casualty of the $40K. Others eliminated during the action of this first day included 2008 bracelet winners Dario Minieri and Daniel Negreanu, 2008 WSOP Europe champion John Juanda, Poker News Daily guest columnist Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth. Even with these prestigious names eliminated, the final 89 players remaining still have some significant star power.
Leading the pack is France’s Bruno Fitoussi with 812,500 in chips, but it is the name that follows him that seems to have drawn the most attention. 2003 World Champion Chris Moneymaker, who has been absent from the final table of tournaments of late, is only 7,000 chips back of Fitoussi as Day Two prepares for action. The rest of the Top Ten looks as such:
1. Bruno Fitoussi 812,500
2. Chris Moneymaker 805,000
3. Justin Bonomo 738,000
4. Alexander Veldhuis 646,500
5. Kyle Wilson 611,500
6. Brian Townsend 609,000
7. Michael DeMichele 519,500
8. Emil Patel 494,500
9. Alan Sass 491,000
10. Andrew Black 449,500
Others near the top of the leader board include Sorel Mizzi, Mark Seif, Ted Forrest and Issac Haxton. Those who have their work cut out for them at the start of Day Two include Chau Giang, Mike Matusow and recent Full Tilt $25K Heads Up champion David Benefield.
Today marks the continuation of the $40K No Limit event and also opens up action on Event #3, the $1500 Omaha Hi/Lo tournament. Poker News Daily will continue to keep you up to date on all the action from the Rio in Las Vegas as the World Series of Poker rolls along.
