It was a busy day at the World Series of Poker as four tournaments took to the felt for the first Sunday of action on this year’s seven week schedule.
The final table for Event #2, the special 40th anniversary $40K No Limit Texas Hold’em event, could best be described as “the old guard versus the new blood.” 201 players had started the event four days prior and, by the time the final nine players were determined, the effects of the internet world could be seen by all.
Leading the pack at the start of final table was internet powerhouse Isaac “westmenloAA” Haxton with almost six million chips, and he was joined by some of his online brethren. Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, Dani “Ansky” Stern and Lex “RaSZI” Veldhuis were all in contention and were prepared to battle the older generation of players who were also vying for the title.
Former world champion Greg Raymer led the old guard to the table with over 3.3 million in chips. He had led the $40K at points throughout the four day competition and, sitting in fourth with his stack, decided to forego the Champions Invitational to battle for the $1.89 million dollar prize here. Raymer was joined at the table by fellow professional Ted Forrest in defending the older players’ honor.
Forrest, who came to the final table with a short stack, left soon after the festivities began in ninth place. He was followed quickly by fellow short stack Noah Schwartz in eighth and then Veldhuis in seventh after “RaSZi” attempted to push an [Ad] [7d] past Raymer’s pocket Kings. The Kings held up and Raymer catapulted into the chip lead.
After the departure of Alex Torelli in sixth, Raymer dispatched Bonomo in fifth when, on a ten high flop, “ZeeJustin” pushed his stack to the center with pocket Jacks; Raymer made the call and showed a cooler with pocket Aces. The remaining four players – Stern, Raymer, Haxton and Vitaly Lunkin – then battled for over forty hands before “Ansky” was eliminated in third place.
With 24 million chips in play, the trio of Haxton, Lunkin and Raymer were virtually tied with eight million chips each. While many thought there would be a good deal of play between these three and their 50 times the blinds stacks, it only took a few hands before both Haxton and Raymer went to war and got their chips to the center. Haxton had the edge with pocket nines over Raymer’s fives and, once he missed his two-outer, “Fossilman” was gone from the tournament in third place.
Over the next three hours, Lunkin and Haxton swapped the lead back and forth. Although Haxton entered heads up play with a 2:1 lead, Lunkin was able to chop into it and move to the lead. Then Haxton – the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure runner-up – would pull back in front. After about two hours of heads-up action, Lunkin was able to switch the table on Haxton and pull into his own 2:1 lead. It took another hour of lead swapping before Lunkin would close the deal on the 53rd hand of action.
Lunkin limped in from the button, Haxton popped it up to 600,000 and Lunkin called. On an all diamond board of Q-10-8, “westmenloAA” led out for 1.2 million, only to see Lunkin move all in. Haxton called with an [8c] [3d] and had been trapped by the pocket Aces of Lunkin. Once the board brought none of the fourteen outs that would save Haxton, Vitaly Lunkin had captured the bracelet for Event #2, the $40K No Limit championship, and earned the respect of all who play the game.
World Series of Poker history was made elsewhere in the Amazon Room of the Rio as, in Event #3, the $1500 Omaha Hi/Lo tournament, defending $1500 Omaha Hi/Lo champion Thang Luu was able to outlast runner-up Ed Smith and a record field of 918 players in this year’s tournament to repeat as the champion.
Luu, who made this final table for the third year in a row, was able to defeat a table of Omaha specialists – including former $50K H.O.R.S.E. champion Freddy Deeb – to earn his second bracelet and the $263,135 first place prize. In making the final table for the third year in a row – and winning it outright for the past two – Luu will put his name beside former World Champion Johnny Chan (1987-88 $10K Championship Event winner, runner up to Phil Hellmuth in 1989) as the only player to make the final table in the same event in three different years.
Two other tournaments were in action on Sunday as the Champions Invitational – the gathering of the living former World Champions – started and will finish off on Monday. Twenty of the former champions started the tournament, with former champions Russ Hamilton (1994), Mansour Matloubi (1990), Hamid Dastmalchi (1992) and Noel Furlong (1999) not in attendance. Leading the final table when play continues on Monday will be 2001 champion Carlos Mortensen, who has slightly over a 10,000 chip edge over Tom McEvoy and Jim Bechtel and almost 20,000 chip edge over two time World Champion Doyle Brunson.
Event $4 also wrapped up its second Day One in what has become the largest ever non-Main Event tournament in poker history. 6012 players made the $1000 No Limit Hold’em tournament a sellout and also built a prize pool of over $5.4 million. After the two Day Ones, 760 players will vie for one of the 621 spots that will pay out in the tournament. As the field comes together today, Jeremiah DeGreef leads the field with professionals such as Jonathan Aguiar, Will “The Thrill” Failla and Captain Tom Franklin in close pursuit. Final table play for this event is scheduled for Wednesday.
There is plenty of action around the Rio with the World Series of Poker and Poker News Daily is in the middle of it. Look for continuing coverage on Poker News Daily all the way through the final table of the Championship Event in November as poker’s grandest stage plays out.