Over the past couple of days, other tournaments not named “The Colossus” or featuring a sizeable buy-in completed their festivities. Of these events, several newcomers were able to make their mark while, in one tournament, a veteran pro who is a fan favorite emerged to once again claim a championship.
Event #6 – $1000 Hyper Hold’em
Arguably the most unique event on the 2015 WSOP calendar was Event #6. With 20 minute blinds, the promise was to close out the tournament in two days of action. The WSOP reached that goal despite having a huge throng of contenders that flocked to the tournament.
1436 runners stepped up to the line earlier this week and, within one day of play, had reached their final table. At that final table, Harrison Beach was the dominant chip leader, using a double knockout on the final hand of the night to hold 2.28 million of the chips in play. Such notable names as Ryan Julius (930K) and Robert Suer (765K) were looking to make a run at Beach, but it was another player on the felt who made the most impact.
Because of the hyper nature of the tournament, players couldn’t just sit around and wait for hands to fall in their laps. This factor would account for why Julius, traditionally a very active player anyways, was one of the first to leave the felt. Julius would give up an early double to Kenneth Johnson to fall to the bottom of the ladder and, following John Reading’s elimination of Wayne Boyd in ninth place, would eventually fall to Matt Woodward, who used an A-10 to top Julius’ K-9 to eliminate Julius in eighth place.
Reading would use those chips from Boyd to mount an assault up the mountain. He knocked off Johnson in seventh to move over the 1.5 million mark while Beach improved on his lead after cruelly dumping Suer in sixth place when his pocket tens coolered Suer’s pocket sixes. Aleksandr Gofman and Woodward knocked heads frequently, resulting in Gofman eliminating Woodward in fifth place, but Gofman couldn’t keep up in eventually falling to Reading in fourth. After Reading had eliminated Beach in third place, he held over a 2.5:1 lead over Marc MacDonnell going to heads up play.
With such a stack, it was only a matter of time for Reading. On the final hand, MacDonnell pushed his dwindling stack to the center and Reading called. His A-7 off suit was in the physical and statistical lead against MacDonnell’s Q-10 off suit, but a J-3-8 rainbow flop gave MacDonnell more outs to the gut shot straight. A deuce changed nothing on the turn and after an unnecessary Ace hit on the river, John Reading was the champion of Hyper poker after only two hours of play at the final table.
1. John Reading, $252,068
2. Marc MacDonnell, $155,876
3. Harrison Beach, $98,623
4. Aleksandr Gofman, $71,586
5. Matt Woodward, $52,807
6. Robert Suer, $39,547
7. Kenneth Johnson, $30,048
8. Ryan Julius, $23,133
9. Wayne Boyd, $18,041
Event #8 – $1500 Pot Limit Hold’em
15 players came back to the tables in the Amazon Room on Wednesday afternoon to determine the champion of the $1500 Pot Limit Hold’em tournament. Event #8 on the 2015 WSOP schedule actually had the distinction of being the first event on this year’s slate to actually have a larger field than its counterpart in 2014. For this year’s event, the 639 player field outpaced 2014’s effort, where 557 runners came to the line.
None of the 15 players left were concerned with that trivial matter, however. They were more interested in first making the final table and then taking down the WSOP gold. With David Eldridge and Michel Leibgorin atop the table (with 677K and 667K in chips, respectively), the gentlemen set about their task of determining a champion fairly quickly. Players such as Andrey Gulyy (13th place, $9075), Kyle Bowker (12th, $11,361) and Tristan Wade (11th, $11,361) would fall short of the final table goal as, once Steven Wendroff dropped in tenth place, the final table was set.
Paul Michaelis had moved to the front of the bus with his 1.1 million in chips, but Eldridge, Leibgorin and Tom Marchese were lurking in the pack. On the very first hand of the official final table, Marchese would wrest the lead from Michaelis’ hands, but Michaelis was tenacious in regaining the lead and then some. He would knock off Will Mitchell in ninth place, land a straight flush against Eldridge in a huge pot and end Georgios Sotiropoulos’ day in eighth place as he crafted a 1.79 million chip mountain. Once he had all of Kevin Andriamahefa’s chips in his stack in eliminating Andriamahefa in seventh, Michaelis was closing in on two million chips and held a dominant edge over the remaining players.
Someone had to step from the pack to challenge Michaelis and it turned out to be Marchese. The longtime pro used the eliminations of Leibgorin (sixth), Hillery Kirby (fifth) and Jesse Cohen (third) to build up his stack, but Michaelis flushed out Eldridge in fourth to hold more than a 3:1 lead going to heads up. Marchese would nearly pulled off the miracle, chipping away at Michaelis’ stack to take a slim lead by the end of Level 27, but that would be his final hurrah.
Michaelis would retake the lead within three hands after the level-up and, on the very next hand, would end the tournament. After seeing Marchese make a min-raise, Michaelis pumped the action to 280K and Marchese moved all in. Michaelis made the call and found himself in dire straits, his pocket nines crushed by Marchese’s pocket Queens. The K-8-3 flop didn’t affect anything, but a nine on the turn pushed Michaelis into a lead that he wouldn’t relinquish with the river Ace. Just like that, Michaelis added his first major championship to his tournament poker resume.
1. Paul Michaelis, $189,818
2. Tom Marchese, $117,199
3. Jesse Cohen, $76,189
4. David Eldridge, $55,960
5. Hillery Kirby, $41,683
6. Michel Leibgorin, $31,425
7. Kevin Andriamahefa, $24,007
8. Georgios Sotiropoulos, $18,529
9. William Mitchell, $14,449
Event #9 – $1500 Razz
Another bright spot for the 2015 WSOP was the $1500 Razz tournament. Event #9 seemed to be very popular with the patrons in the WSOP tournament arena as 462 players put up their money for a shot at Razz glory. That blasted past the 2014 numbers for the tournament, when 352 players would eventually see Ted Forrest defeat Phil Hellmuth heads up to divvy up the lion’s share of the prize pool.
19 players came back on Wednesday to settle the score with Chris George out in the lead by holding 356,000 in chips. Only one other player, Matthew Smith (307K) was above the 300K threshold, but such challenging pros as Eli Elezra, Cyndy Violette and Max Pescatori lurked down the standing. With a $155,947 bounty and the WSOP bracelet awaiting the eventual champion, the players got to business very quickly.
Six players were eliminated in the first two hours of play and, after Bart Hanson (13th place), Hernan Salazar (12th), Kiryl Radzivonau (11th) and Sergio Braga (10th) were eliminated in another hour-plus of play, the final table was set. George had extended his lead nicely, sitting as the only player over the million chip mark, while the remainder of the field played catch-up.
One of the best stories of the Razz event was the return of Violette to the tables. Tied up with starting her own restaurant, Violette’s Vegan Organic Eatery & Juice Bar, over the past couple of years, the New Jersey poker professional hasn’t been around the felt much. She would come into the unofficial final table as the short stack and, although Pescatori would knock her out in ninth place on the final table bubble, it was definitely a triumphant return for one of the best non-Hold’em players in the United States.
Pescatori would use the knockout of Violette to begin a steady climb up the hill. He took out the other lady at the table, Robin Lee, in seventh before cutting a chunk of chips out of George’s stack to pull nearly even with the chip leader. Pescatori would pass George for the lead in taking two hands from him and, after eliminating Smith in fourth, held over two million in chips. Pescatori took care of his nemesis George, bumping him out in third place, to set up a showdown with Ryan Miller for the WSOP bracelet.
Holding nearly a 3:1 lead, Pescatori was never seriously threatened during heads up play. In a three-hand span, Pescatori demolished Miller’s stack, making an outstanding 7-6-4-3-2 low on the final hand while the deck didn’t agree with Miller in triple-pairing him. With that, Pescatori claimed his third WSOP bracelet and sealed his reputation as one of Italy’s greatest poker players.
1. Max Pescatori, $155,947
2. Ryan Miller, $96,349
3. Chris George, $61,247
4. Matthew Smith, $44,164
5. Eli Elezra, $32,345
6. Randy Kaas, $24,049
7. Robin Lee, $18,149
8. Matthew Mendez, $13,902
