The 2014 World Series of Poker has broken the halfway mark on its march to the 2014 Championship Event as two more bracelets were awarded on Wednesday. One event went so quickly that it didn’t need a fourth day and another saw one of the members of the 2010 “November Nine” denied his first bracelet.
Event #35 – $5000 Eight Handed No Limit Hold’em
23 players returned on Wednesday to continue the hunt for the WSOP bracelet with Jeff Madsen sitting atop the leaderboard with his 661,000 in chips. Madsen, a three time WSOP bracelet winner, wasn’t alone when it came to his professional compatriots as Josh Arieh, Sam Stein, Eric Froehlich and Brian Yoon (all bracelet winners), Sam Trickett, Tony Cousineau and Olivier Busquet were all looking to take him down. Busquet, on the short stack, was eliminated on the first hand of the day by Sylvain Loosli, however.
That was indicative of the early action as, within about 30 minutes of the start of play, a new chip leader emerged. Yoon and Madsen went to battle on a 9-5-3-A flop and turn with Yoon getting his chips in the center on that turn Ace. Yoon’s pocket fives were ahead of a wealth of draws that Madsen’s 4-3 held and, after a King came on the river, Yoon saw his chip stack soar to 1.4 million in chips while Madsen plummeted to only 140K. Another 20 minutes later, Yoon would finish off Madsen to send the start of day chip leader home in 20th place.
Yoon continued to surge, eliminating Erwann Pecheux to crack the two million chip mark as, with the two table redraw, no one else had more than 550K in chips. He then sat back for a bit as he watched Stein depart in 14th place and David Peters depart in 12th before stepping back in to knock off Trickett in 11th place. After Arieh took down Justin Kindred in tenth, the unofficial final table of nine (remember, this is eight-handed) came together with Yoon holding a massive lead over the field.
The official table would be determined when Josh Bergman put a bad beat on Nick Grippo. Grippo’s final chips would go in pre-flop and he had the better of it, his pocket Kings ruling over Bergman’s pocket Queens. The flop and turn came uneventfully as J-9-3-A, but the Queen on the river was devastating to Grippo. Bergman scooped up the sizeable pot to move into contention as Grippo walked away in ninth place.
Despite having another day on the schedule, the final eight men charged onward. Bergman put his name into the upper reaches of the leaderboard in cracking pocket Kings again, this time held by Mustapha Kanit, with pocket Queens to reach 1.673 million in chips. Kanit, now down to 240K in chips, would see that stack fall even further (to 30K) after Cousineau made quad tens against his flopped straight. Undaunted, Kanit fought back that, only 20 minutes later, he would reestablish his stack to 677K.
Yoon, meanwhile, continued to dominate the table. His three-plus million in chips vastly outpaced Bergman and Arieh as Dan Smith, Kanit, Ardit Kurshumi, Cousineau and Timo Pfutzenreuter all struggled to keep up. A flurry of eliminations – Cousineau in eighth, Pfutzenreuter in seventh, Smith in sixth and Kanit in fifth – sent the final four players to dinner with Arieh creeping closer to the still-dominant Yoon.
The dinner break didn’t slow the players down, especially Arieh. He would go on to knock off Kurshumi in fourth and Bergman in third to draw almost even with Yoon. Both players held over four million in chips (Yoon had 4.255 million, Arieh 4.01 million) at the start of heads up play as everyone settled in for a long battle.
That “long battle” never materialized as the tournament was concluded with 20 hands of heads-up action. Arieh drew first blood, taking over the lead only a few hands into the fight, before Yoon fought back to retake his lead on Hand 131. From there, Yoon slowly ground down Arieh and, on Hand 143, ended the tournament when Yoon (holding an 8♦ 2♦) flopped a flush on a 6♦ 7♦ 9♦ A♣ 6♣ board against Arieh (holding an A♦ 2♥) and called Arieh’s all in on fourth street.
1. Brian Yoon (United States), $633,341
2. Josh Arieh (United States), $391,575
3. Josh Bergman (United States), $246,169
4. Ardit Kurshumi (United States), $176,684
5. Mustapha Kanit (Italy), $128,862
6. Dan Smith (United States), $95,515
7. Timo Pfutzenreuter (Germany), $71,940
8. Tony Cousineau (United States), $55,034
Event #36 – $1500 No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball
Only six men returned on Wednesday from the 241 starters in Event #36 and it turned out it would be another quick day on the felt before another WSOP bracelet was handed out. How quick, you might ask? Try only two hours of play.
The six men were tightly packed together at the start of the action, with Steven Wolansky only holding a 24,000 chip lead over Samuel Touil (233K) and 35K over Joseph Cheong (221,500). The other three men – Christopher Mecklin (145K), Max Kruse (131K) and Orjan Skommo (109K) – weren’t out of the mix as one double up would put them among the leaders in the tournament.
Touil saw most of his chips head into the stack of Wolansky before Cheong eliminated him in sixth place only 20 minutes into the day’s play. Cheong continued to make ground against Wolansky in taking out Skommo in fifth place, but Wolansky pushed him back down on Hand 30 in one of the many clashes between the two men. Cheong would climb back into the fight, however, when he was dealt the nuts (7-5-4-3-2) in eliminating Mecklin in fourth place.
Kruse, who was left off the German national soccer team that is currently competing at the World Cup in Brazil, was looking up at two men who had his chip stack dominated. Although he fought admirably, he couldn’t overcome those chip disparities as, on his final hand, he looked to catch up to Cheong’s 10-9-6-5-2 with his 7-6-4-3 by drawing one card. That card, unfortunately, was a Jack, sending Kruse to the rail in third place and setting up the heads up match with Cheong leading Wolansky 592K-495K.
Cheong and Wolansky would only play 34 hands of heads up play, keeping the chip stacks nearly even between the two, before the final hand came down. Cheong called an all-in from Wolansky and stood pat with his 10-7-6-3-2 as Wolansky drew a single card. With his 8-7-5-2 showing, Wolansky squeezed the draw card and showed a nine to outpip Cheong’s holdings to take down the championship.
1. Steven Wolansky (United States), $89,483
2. Joseph Cheong (United States), $55,309
3. Max Kruse (Germany), $36,494
4. Christopher Mecklin (United States), $24,908
5. Orjan Skommo (Norway), $17,445
6. Samuel Touil (France), $12,529
7. Scott Bohlman (United States), $9,223*
8. Adam Crawford (Canada), $6,955*
(* – made official final table of event, eliminated on Tuesday)
