After two long Day Three’s of work, two more bracelets were awarded at the 2013 World Series of Poker on Saturday night/Sunday morning. In one tournament, a longtime poker professional was able to outlast a difficult final day field to take the bracelet, while a newcomer to the WSOP felt was able to vanquish a large contingent of players to take home the gold.
Event #24 – $1500 No Limit Hold’em
Seventeen players came back on Saturday with the glory of the WSOP bracelet all in their minds. The player with the best shot at the bracelet was Salvatore DiCarlo, who came to the final day of play with a 984,000 chip stack. Sitting behind him were two veterans of the European Poker Tour wars, Zimnan Ziyard and Mohsin Charania, with Charania sitting in third place with his 940,000 in chips.
Within an hour of the opening bell, four players had been cut away from the field, bringing the final 13 men from the 1,731 player field closer to the final table. Daniel Cascado would knock off Ryan Franklin in tenth place to reach the final table, seizing the chip lead over Paul Spitzberg and Corey Harrison, while Ziyard came in with the fourth place stack and Charania and DiCarlo sat down the ladder.
After storming to the final table in less than two hours, the action would slow as the players jousted for position. Charania would take out Robert Brewer in ninth place to get his stack healthy, double through Cascado and then knock off Gareth Teatum in eighth to pull into second place. Ziyard, however, went in the opposite direction, bleeding off chips until he was eliminated by DiCarlo in seventh place.
In an interesting hand, Cascado and Charania would clash, with one of them leaving the battle and the final table at the same time. Cascado put out a bet and Charania wasted little time in pushing the remainder of his stack to the center. Cascado made the call with his K-Q off suit and found himself slightly behind Charania’s A-10 pre-flop, but that changed when the flop came Q-8-8. When the turn and river blanked out, Cascado rocketed to 2.6 million in chips while Charania walked away from the felt in sixth place.
After Gregory Josifovski was eliminated in fifth place, play slowed a bit as the players came and went from dinner. Cascado was at the head of the pack, while DiCarlo and Spitzberg vied for second. Sitting as the short stack, Harrison was still a threat with his 1.44 million in chips.
Twenty hands after returning from dinner, Cascado would extend his lead in knocking out Spitzberg in fourth place, his pocket Jacks holding up over Spitzberg’s K-6 off suit, while Harrison would get a key double against DiCarlo to move over the two million mark. It would take a bit more work (sixteen hands), but Harrison would end the event for DiCarlo in third place to head to the mano y mano matchup with Cascado.
Over two million chips behind Cascado, Harrison looked to have his work cut out for him. Over the first ten hands, Cascado kept the pressure on in moving out to a 2:1 lead over Harrison. Within the next dozen hands, however, Harrison had pulled back to even and, after another 12 deals, had moved into the lead without any major showdowns. On Hand #211, Harrison opened up from the button and, after an all-in push from Cascado, made the call with his A♠ 7♠. Cascado could only unveil a K-10 off suit and the news would get somewhat worse on the flop.
The A♦ J♠ 4♠ gave both players some help, but kept Harrison in the lead (top pair, nut flush draw) over Cascado (gut shot straight draw). A six on the turn was of no help to either player and the Jack on the river gave the pot and the WSOP bracelet to Corey Harrison.
1. Corey Harrison (Birmingham, AL), $432,411
2. Daniel Cascado (United Kingdom), $267,452
3. Salvatore DiCarlo (Las Vegas, NV), $184,914
4. Paul Spitzberg (Tenafly, NJ), $133,364
5. Gregory Josifovski (Sterling Heights, MI), $97,493
6. Mohsin Charania (Chicago, IL), $72,208
7. Zimnan Ziyard (Eastbourne, the United Kingdom), $54,191
8. Gareth Teatum (Doncaster, the United Kingdom), $41,198
9. Robert Brewer (Portland, OR), $31,711
Event #25 – $5000 Omaha Hold’em Hi/Lo
Proving to be one of the most difficult tournaments to this point of the 2013 WSOP, the final 27 players returned on Saturday for the last day of play in the $5000 Omaha Hi/Lo event. Each of the three remaining players seemed to have some well-stacked pro waiting at it. On one table, Alexander Kostritsyn, Viacheslav Zhukov, Jonathan Duhamel, Dario Alioto and Dan Kelly set up shop; chip leader Robert Mizrachi had Brian Hastings, 2013 WSOP bracelet winner Mike Matusow, Danny Fuhs and Jeffrey Lisandro to contend with; while Eric Crain saw Shawn Buchanan, Maria Ho, George Danzer, Huck Seed and Julie Schneider as he scanned the felt.
Matt Nowicki was the first player to take the walk from the Rio only ten minutes into the day’s play. Alioto would be gone next, his double suited A♦ 7♦ 8♠ 2♠ failing to hit anything against Arthur Kargen’s A-A-8-2 on a J-10-6-K-4 board. After Kelly (20th place, his seventh cash at the 2013 WSOP) and Ho (19th) headed to the rail only two hours into the day’s play, the final 18 survivors divvied up into two tables to continue the battle.
Another two hours of splitting and scooping pots would bring those two tables down to one. During that time, such players as Kostritsyn (15th), Danzer (14th), Shawn Buchanan (13th), Schneider (12th) and Matusow (11th), would head for the exits, while Christopher George surged to be the only player over the million chip mark. When Duhamel was eliminated in tenth place, the official final table was set for Event #25.
One of the big stories of the day’s action was Lisandro, who was able to battle off the short stack for much of the day to make the final table. After the eliminations of Bart Hanson and Ryan Lenaghan, Lisandro eventually would be taken out by Hastings in seventh place. Hastings was on fire at this point, taking down Kargen in sixth on the very next hand, while Zhukov would be eliminated by George in fifth place soon afterwards.
The final four men – George, Hastings, Mizrachi and Fuhs – were only separated by 700K in chips and, considering the nature of the split pot game, the tournament was anyone’s to take. It started tough for Fuhs, seeing George scoop a pot against him and folding another against George on the river (after which George showed his pocket Kings to partner with the two on the board for quads). Fuhs would get back into the match, however, scoring a scoop of his own against Hastings to get back near the million chip mark.
That seemed to be the impetus Fuhs needed to get his game going. Although Mizrachi was able to knock off Hastings in fourth place, he would fall to Fuhs in third to set the heads up fight. At this point, Fuhs had a slim 250K chip lead and, over the next two hours, would control the table against George.
On the final hand, George got his chips to the center with an A-9-5-4 against Fuhs’ 7-6-3-2 only to see a deuce on the 2-K-Q flop put his opponent into the lead with a slim low draw possibility. A Jack on the turn eliminated any low draw, but George still had outs to any of the cards in his hand for the win. Another Jack on the river was not what he wanted, however, ending the tournament in favor of Danny Fuhs.
1. Danny Fuhs (Scottsdale, AZ), $277,519
2. Christopher George (Croton on Hudson, NY), $171,536
3. Robert Mizrachi (Miami, FL), $128,074
4. Brian Hastings (Hanover Township, PA), $96,268
5. Viacheslav Zhukov (Stary Oskol, Russia), $72,809
6. Arthur Kargen (Williamsville, NY), $55,423
7. Jeff Lisandro (Salerno, Italy), $42,442
8. Ryan Lenaghan (Mobile, AL), $32,712
9. Bart Hanson (West Hollywood, CA), $25,361
