The preliminary events of the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) are winding down and with the completion of Events #54 and #55 Wednesday there is only one more bracelet to give out before the Main Event kicks off on Friday. While the crowds at the Rio may have been smaller than usual yesterday, there was still plenty of excitement to go around as backgammon player turned poker pro Abe Mosseri and Illinois software engineer and recreational player Tony Veckey each picked up their first WSOP gold bracelets.
Mosseri earned his bracelet in the last non-Hold’em event of the Series, a $2,500 Limit Deuce to Seven Triple Draw event. Over the course of the first two days the field whittled down from 258 players to nine who would return on the final day. Included among them were a couple of big name pros like Full Tilt Pro John Juanda and Kill Phil co-author Blair Rodman. There was also another pro paying very close attention to this event: 2007 WSOP Player of the Year Tom Schneider was on the rail for much of the day rooting his wife, Julie Schneider, on her first ever WSOP final table.
Schneider, Juanda and Rodman all made the seven-handed final table of the event. Rodman, who was always in the middle or towards the bottom of the chip counts lost most of his chips to Mosseri and was subsequently eliminated in 5th place. Juanda followed suit shortly thereafter going out fourth, and Schneider was the next to fall. The final two players standing were Mosseri, who has been a cash game presence in the New York card room scene for several years now; and Masayoshi Tanaka, an online player from Japan who specializes in Lowball games. The two battled back and forth for a while, but Tanaka could not overcome Mosseri’s run of good cards and settled for second place while Mosseri won his first career bracelet and $166,651. This is the second final table appearance for Mosseri this WSOP. He also final tabled the $10,000 Stud Hi Championship event, finishing in sixth place.
Wednesday’s other bracelet winner, Veckey, won his bracelet after navigating through the 2,818-person field of the final $1,500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em preliminary event. The tournament was the tenth event out of the 56 preliminary events to fill to capacity and sell out. According to a press release from the WSOP, this is the first time in the 40 year history of the Series that many events saw players turned away from registration because there was simply no place to put them.
Twenty-eight players returned for Day 3 of the final $1,500 event including WPT winner Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar who fell short of the final table in 15th place. The first batch of eliminations to get down to the final two tables came in a rush at the beginning of the day, but action slowed and it took until around 8PM to get down to the unofficial 10-handed final table. Perhaps as a result of the relief of making it to the top nine and the pay jumps that come with such an accomplishment, play loosened up and it didn’t take long at all for the final ten to pare down to just two.
There were no recognizable names at the final table, but there were several avid amateur players from both the live and online poker worlds. Players at the table ran the gamut from online grinders like Joe Chaplin and Jason Wheeler to live tournament players with success on the Latin American and Heartland poker tours like Christopher Demaci and Christopher Bonita to players making their first substantial live score like Sergey Konkin, Andrew Malott and the eventual winner Tony Veckey.
Heads-up play came down to Veckey and Wheeler, with Wheeler holding a slight chip advantage over his opponent after Chaplin was eliminated in 3rd place. Wheeler started the day 6th/28 and spent the majority of Day Three at or near the top of the leaderboard. Veckey was in the middle of the pack for much of the final table, but he was able to slowly chip away at his opponent to pull back to even.
On the final hand of play Veckey and Wheeler got it all-in on a Q-10-8 flop with Veckey holding J-9 for a flopped straight while Wheeler was drawing slim with A-Q for top pair. The straight held and the amateur Veckey staked his claim to one of the last available bracelets of 2009. After winning the second largest tournament of the Series thus far, Veckey remained level-headed about his future plans. “I am going to go back to work. That is what I am going to do,” Veckey explained. “But if I win the Main Event next year, that will be a tougher decision.” He will be going back to work with an additional $673,276 in his pocket for his first place finish.
There is still one more bracelet to award on Thursday and it will come in Event #56, a $5,000 buy-in 6-Handed No Limit Hold’em event. Sixteen players will return at 1PM to play down from the final three tables to a bracelet winner and there are still a couple of notable pros alive and kicking in the event even though Raymond Davis, Phil Hellmuth and Full Tilt Pro David Chiu all saw their chances at the bracelets extinguished yesterday. Former World Poker Tour winner Eugene Katchalov, Full Tilt Pro Peter “Nordberg” Feldman and online cash game specialist Matt Hawrilenko all remain in contention for the bracelet.
