Completing its first week of action at the Rio in Las Vegas, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) awarded two bracelets on Thursday night, with three other tournaments in action and two set to start their Day Ones on Friday.
Event #6, the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout, began on Tuesday with 358 runners coming to the line. The unique format of the event – where a player has to defeat his entire table to move onto the next round – drew some of the top players in the game. Top players such as 2009 Main Event final tablist James Akenhead, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Faraz “The_Toilet” Jaka, Dario Minieri, and Blair Hinkle all walked away with an official cash from the tournament, but fell short of the final table.
The six-handed final table was split between the countries represented, with top English pro Neil “Bad Beat” Channing leading fellow countrymen Stuart Rutter and Nicolas Levi against a trio of Americans that included Brent “bhanks11” Hanks, Joshua Tieman, and Joseph Elpayaa. Because of the Shootout format of the event, each player began the final table with 1.5 million in chips, but the players wasted little time in shifting the sands of chip counts over the course of the four-hour final table.
After eliminating Hanks in sixth place, Levi took on Tieman in one of the biggest hands of the final table. Showing pocket jacks against Tieman’s pocket eights, Levi was crushed when an eight appeared in the window, leaving him drawing thin to two outs. Once the board ran out with no help, Levi took the fifth place prize and, barely an hour and a half into the final table, play was four-handed.
It would take an additional two hours before the bustouts came fast and furious. Over the course of the final 50 minutes of the tournament, Tieman eliminated Elpayaa (fourth) and Rutter (third) to reach the heads-up battle against the veteran Channing. Holding a 7-1 chip advantage, Tieman ground Channing down during a 35-minute fight. In the final hand, the chips went to the center with Channing holding an inferior A-7 to Tieman’s A-J. The board provided no miracles for Channing, giving the gold and diamond WSOP bracelet and $441,692 first place prize to Tieman.
1. Joshua Tieman (Chicago, IL) $441,692
2. Neil Channing (London, United Kingdom) $273,153
3. Stuart Rutter (Moseley, United Kingdom) $179,617
4. Joseph Elpayaa (Forest Park, IL) $125,387
5. Nicolas Levi (London, United Kingdom) $92,543
6. Brent Hanks (Fillmore, NY) $71,998
Another final table – for Event #7, the $2,500 Deuce to Seven Lowball Triple Draw – also closed action on Thursday. Top cash game pro David Chiu led the eight players who survived the 291 player field, with experienced lowball players such as Raphael Zimmerman (sixth in last year’s lowball event won by Phil Ivey), Leonard Martin (second in 2007’s version of the tournament), and Tad Jurgens. When Jurgens was eliminated in eighth place, the final table was set for action.
After another eight hours of battle, it was Peter Gelencser, a Hungarian pro who came to the final table with the second largest chip stack, going up against Zimmerman for the WSOP bracelet. After an hour-long heads up match, Gelencser was able to capture the crown when, holding an excellent 9-7-4-3-2, Zimmerman paired on his last draw.
1. Peter Gelencser (Budapest, Hungary) $180,730
2. Raphael Zimmerman (Henderson, NV) $111,686
3. Don McNamara (San Jose, CA) $73,803
4. David Chiu (Las Vegas, NV) $50,157
5. Jameson Painter (Las Vegas, NV) $34,843
6. Leonard Martin (Las Vegas, NV) $24,723
7. Shujiro Uchida (Kamodaminamimachi, Japan) $17,903
8. Tad Jurgens (Tempe, AZ) $17,903
Three other tournaments were in various stages of their play on Thursday. The $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament, Event #8 on the WSOP schedule, will come back for its final day of play on Friday with Phil Hellmuth in the hunt for Bracelet #12. Hellmuth is sitting with 556,000 chips, good for fifth place among the 25 players remaining. Israel’s Saar Wilf leads the pack with his 1.2 million chip stack.
Event #9, the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em tournament, brought out a strong crowd of 650 participants for its first day of action. In a particularly brutal day, the money bubble was burst by the close of business late Thursday night. 65 players come back on Friday for the continuation of the tournament, with the U.K.’s James Dempsey leading a field that includes such notable players as Joanne “J. J.” Liu, Melissa Hayden, Chris Moore, Cornel Cimpan, and Victory Poker pro Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little.
Event #10 is one of the World Championship events, the $10,000 Seven Card Stud tournament, which brought out 150 of the strongest Stud players in the world. Coming off his victory in the $50,000 Player’s Championship, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi is at the top of the 88 players that remain in the tournament. Challenges await the recent WSOP bracelet winner, however, as none other than Doyle Brunson sits in fifth place. Others who could be an obstacle to “The Grinder’s” second bracelet this year include Men “The Master” Nguyen, Nick Shulman, brother Robert Mizrachi, and the dreaded Phil Ivey.
Two events will kick off action in the crowded Pavilion Room at the Rio today. Two $1,500 tournaments, Event #11’s No Limit Hold’em and Event #12’s Limit Hold’em, will start at Noon and 5:00pm PT, respectively. Along with the tournaments in action, five events will be running simultaneously this afternoon, making this the first truly “busy” Friday as the World Series of Poker closes out its first week of play.
