The first two open bracelets of the 2013 World Series of Poker were handed out yesterday, with one champion dominating his final table and the other working until almost midnight before capturing his.
Event #2 – $5000 Eight Handed No Limit Hold’em
Coming into the final table, Trevor Pope controlled over half of the chips in play, so it was expected that it was his tournament to lose. Pope didn’t disappoint anyone, dominating the table so thoroughly that the bracelet was on his wrist within four hours of play on Saturday afternoon.
Sitting on his 3.42 million in chips, Pope vastly outpaced two players who were tied for second behind him, Jared Hamby and David Vamplew, and their 629,000 in chips. With such a dominant chip lead, Pope could have been excused if he just sat back and let the rest of the field take each other out. He didn’t do that, however, demonstrating from the start of the final table that the championship was going to be his.
Within the first ten hands of play, Pope increased his chip stack to 3.78 million while the field attempted to draw closer. Hamby was able to make some increases of his own, taking a nice pot against Dan Kelly to close in on the million chip mark. After he eliminated David Peters in eighth, Brandon Meyers in seventh and Kelly in sixth (after Pope hit trip sevens on the river to crush Kelly’s pocket Aces), Pope’s chip stack had increased to 4.7 million, nearly seven times that of Hamby (730,000).
Pope decided to go into relaxation mode at this point, letting Darryll Fish and Vamplew (who eliminated Jamie Armstrong in fifth) crack the million chip mark. Pope then put the accelerator to the floor again, winning five of the next six hands and getting two walks to remind everyone who was in charge. After only three hours of action, Pope’s lead over Fish was more than 4:1 and Hamby and Vamplew were trying to stay in the event.
The Pope rampage would continue as he knocked off Hamby in fourth (outdrawing his Big Slick with an A♦ J♦ that found a flush on the turn) and Fish in third to set up a showdown with Vamplew for the title. To call it a “showdown” would be difficult; Pope’s 6.65 million chips dwarfed Vamplew’s 550K and, although Vamplew would double up a few hands into heads up play, the end would come when Pope’s pocket fives stood up over Vamplew’s A-6 off suit to take down the WSOP bracelet.
1. Trevor Pope (Gainesville, FL), $553,906
2. David Vamplew (Fife, the United Kingdom), $342,450
3. Darryll Fish (Cape Coral, FL), $215,286
4. Jared Hamby (Henderson, NV), $154,518
5. Jamie Armstrong (Irvine, CA), $112,695
6. Dan Kelly (Potomac, MD), $83,532
7. Brandon Meyers (Columbus, OH), $62,915
8. David Peters (Rancho Santa Fe, CA), $48,130
Event #3 – $1000 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
38 players came back on Saturday from the 3,164 player field to determine a champion. Seth Berger had used a massive run at the end of Friday’s play to emerge as the chip leader, but a player who made this same final table in 2012, Ryan Olisar, was close behind him. Once the cards hit the air on Saturday afternoon, the players took little time to work their way down to the final table.
One of the early eliminations was Scott Seiver, who fell at the hands of Ryan Tepen after Tepen hit a flush against him. At the same time, Berger continued to head the field in becoming the first player to crack the million chip mark and Charles Sylvestre made a move to the upper echelons of the leaderboard in taking a hand off of Nam Le. Within two hours of the start of the day’s action, the field whittled itself down to 21 players.
Sylvestre would join Berger over the million chip plateau, but would give back some of those chips to Berger to drop down the leaderboard. The two would continue to joust until the redraw of tables with 18 players left separated them. Sylvestre would gradually begin to rebuild his stack, getting a double against Ping Liu to get back over the million chip mark, but another player began to put his name in the mix at the final table.
Ruben Ybarra would open the action and, after a three bet from Berger, Derek Buonano pushed all in from the small blind. Ybarra moved all in over the top and, after Berger declined to call, Ybarra’s pocket Kings were in a dominant position over Buonano’s pocket eights. A King on the flop let Buonano looking for the final two eights in the deck to beat Ybarra and, once a six came on the turn, Buonano was out in twelfth place and Ybarra rocketed into the chip lead with 1.75 million chips. Ybarra would extend that lead in eliminating Seth Baker in tenth place to set up the official final table and, over the next four hours, the champion was determined.
A few hands into the final table, Ybarra would lose the lead in doubling up Berger and then be eliminated in eighth place by Berger when his K-9 off suit couldn’t contend with Berger’s turned nut flush. Sylvestre was slowly gaining momentum also, eliminating Olisar in sixth place and Michael Cooper in fourth to pull within 800K in chips of Berger. After Sylvestre eliminated William Guerrero in third place, Berger and Sylvestre were virtually even in chips.
While both players were amply stacked with chips, they didn’t waste any time in putting them in action. Sylvestre took the first big pot heads up, forcing Berger to fold on the turn on a 6-3-5-Q rainbow board. On the final hand, Sylvestre continued to aggressively attack Berger, firing pre-flop and on each street on a 3-A-K-x-8 board. Sylvestre’s river all in was called by Berger, who saw Sylvestre table an A-J and could only muck his cards and concede the championship to Sylvestre.
1. Charles Sylvestre (Saint-Bruno, Quebec), $491,360
2. Seth Berger (Los Angeles, CA), $303,952
3. William Guerrero (Moab, UT), $215,107
4. Michael Cooper (Fort Worth, TX), $155,706
5. Binh Ta (San Gabriel, CA), $114,017
6. Ryan Olisar (Naperville, IL), $84,459
7. Darren Rabinowitz (Mercer Island, WA), $63,273
8. Ruben Ybarra (Park Ridge, IL), $47,925
9. Ping Liu (Chicago, IL), $36,705
