Just days after finishing runner-up to Zac Fellows in the $3,000 buy-in HORSE event, poker pro James Van Alstyne made another HORSE final table, this time in the $1,500 buy-in HORSE tournament. While he just missed the mark at the former final table, he finally captured the elusive gold bracelet in this most recent event.
Van Alstyne has a long list of poker accomplishments to his name, including over $3 million in tournament winnings and six World Series of Poker (WSOP) final tables, but he was missing that final piece of the puzzle – the bracelet. So far this Series Van Alstyne has been close to the title on several occasions; in addition to finishing second in the $3,000 HORSE event, he also took 6th in the $10,000 Mixed Games championship event which was won by Ville Wahlbeck.
At Monday night’s final table Van Alstyne started out near the bottom of the chip counts, but managed to rally back once play got down to the final six players. After the other big names at the table, online pro Shannon Shorr and Bryan “The Icon” Micon, were eliminated in 5th and 4th place respectively, Van Alstyne made quick work of his two remaining opponents Mitch Schock and Tad Jurgens. Schock went out in third place and Jurgens was eliminated in second just half an hour later. Van Alstyne earned $247,033 for his victory. With his win, Van Alstyne is now tied with Brock “t_soprano” Parker for third in the WSOP Player of the Year race with 220 points.
Just a few tables away from Van Alstyne’s HORSE final table, another gold bracelet was on the line. Play in the $10,000 buy-in Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em event was initially scheduled to end Monday, but after a long day of matches, the two finalists, semi-professional online poker player Leo “Pechorin” Wolpert and EPT co-founder and PokerStars Pro John Duthie, were given a night to rest up before playing out the championship match.
Play in the finals kicked off at noon on Tuesday where the players played a total of three matches before a champion was crowned. While the rest of the tournament was single elimination, the finals were conducted in a best-of-three format.
Wolpert jumped to an early lead in Match One, but doubled Duthie back up to even when his A-Q lost a race to Duthie’s pocket tens. From that point forward, Duthie proceeded to chip away, eventually taking down Match #1 in a matter of 96 hands. The players took a short break and returned for Match #2 which was done in a flash. Match #2 lasted a grand total of nine hands before Wolpert put it away with a monster hand.
With the blinds at 15,000/30.000 Wolpert raised to 90,000 and Duthie called from the big blind. The two then proceeded to get it all-in on the [Ah][9s][6c] flop with Duthie holding [As][Kc] for top pair, top kicker and Wolpert holding [6d][6h] for a set of sixes. The set held and Wolpert was right back in the thick of things in a matter of minutes.
The end of the tournament was still a long ways away though. The third and final match lasted an astounding 191 hands and several hours before a winner was determined. On the final hand of play, Wolpert got it all in on a [Ts][5c][3s] holding [3h][5h] for two pair versus Duthie’s [Td][2h] for top pair. The treys and fives held to give Wolpert his first WSOP bracelet at his second WSOP final table.
Wolpert, who divides his time between playing online and attending law school at the University of Virginia, was ecstatic after his big win. However, in his post-victory interview he remained level headed about his achievement. “[Life] won’t change”, he explained. “I will have more money in the bank. But I am still going to be in law school next year.” Wolpert is right, he will definitely have more money: he earned $625,682 for his win while Duthie took home $386,636 for second.
Wednesday will see two more bracelets awarded. The twelve players remaining in the $10,000 buy-in World Championship of Limit Hold’em will return at 1PM to play down to a winner. Kenny Hsiung is the current chip leader, but several other known pros including Full Tilt Pros Jennifer Harman and Greg “FBT” Mueller as well as Daniel Alaei and PokerStars Pro Chad Brown remain in the field.
A winner will also be crowned in the $2,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Event. Chip leader Jason Boynes and Peter “Nordberg” Feldman are amongst the 19 players still in contention for the bracelet.
With a little more than half of the events in the books, the WSOP has awarded $64,293,644 in cash prizes and drawn 32,136 participants. There are still a couple dozen more tournaments to go, including the Main Event, so expect those numbers to grow substantially as play continues into July.