The Poker Gleaner

The “Stimulus Special” tournament started with a record field of over 6000 players  and after four days of play, Steve Sung emerged the victor. Sung, who has made  several WSOP and WPT final table appearances,  but until now the titles have always eluded him.

Sung started the day second on the leaderboard, but at one stage lost a big percentage of his stack and was in danger of being eliminated, but started to climb back up the leaderboard and take control as chipleader.

Heads-up action saw Sung up against Pete Vilandos. Although Vilandos made a valiant effort to reduce the deficit between the two, it came down to Sung’s K-K against Vilandos’s 8-8, who’s hand did not improve. Vilandos goes away with $473,283 for his second place finish, while Steve Sung collects his first WSOP bracelet and the winners $771,106.

When Day 3 of the $1,000 NLHE tournament finally got underway, the 50 players that remained had originally been aiming to play down to the eventual winner, but because of an unforeseen delay due to the size of the entrants for Event #7, they only played down until the final table was set.

The chipleader going into the final day will be Dan Heimiller, who had rode his luck earlier on in the day. The leader going into Day 3, Robert Comegys did not make it onto the final table busting out in 19th place.

The Final Table will be as follows;

1. Dan Heimiller  –  4,155,000
2. Steve Sung  –  3,395,000
3. Panayote “Pete” Vilandos  –  1,940,000
4. James Matz 111  –  1,885,000
5. Jeff Oakes  –  1,680,000
6. Larry Sidebotham  –  1,500,000
7. Phong Huynh  –  1,310,000
8. Nathen Mullen  –  1,210,000
9. Danny Fuhs  –  965,000

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the World Series Of Poker a unique freeroll was held.  All the surviving Main Event winners were invited to play for a vintage 1970 Corvette Stingray Hotrod and a trophy honouring the creator of the WSOP  Harry Binion.

Twenty previous winners of the Main Event from, Amarillo Slim, winner in 1972, to last years champion Peter Eastgate, were seated round three tables. First previous champion who had the unenviable honour of being knocked out first was Jamie Gold, who went in one of the first hands in the tournament, busted by Carlos Mortensen with pocket kings.

Next out was Chris Moneymaker and Jerry Yang, who’s A-A was beat  by Scotty Nguyen’s set of queens. Nguyen himself was knocked out by Tom McEvoy. Others who went out before the end of the first day included, Chris Ferguson, Amarillo Slim, Brad Docherty, Greg Rayman, Johnny Chan and Joe Hachem.

Going into the second day, Carlos Mortensen held the chiplead and in his first hand he busted out Phil Hellmuth. Next out was 2008 champion Peter Eastgate, who was eliminated at the hands of Dan Harrington. Twice Main Event winner and living poker legend Doyle Brunson was knocked out by the eventual winner Tom McEvoy. 

Mortensen knocked out the next two players Berry Johnston and Huck Seed, but was busted out by Jim Bechtel, who went out in fourth place. Dan Harrington took third place when he was knocked out by the dominant chip stack Tom McEvoy.  

The heads-up action saw McEvoy up against Robert Varkonyi who started well but eventually succumbed to McEvoy’s Dominant stack. Tom McEvoy was presented with the keys to the Corvette and the Binion Cup, by Jack Binion, the son of  Benny Binion the founder of the WSOP and the Binion Horseshoe Casino the spiritual home of the WSOP

On the second day of the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament a combined field of 760 players from Days 1a and 1b, aimed to play down to a final table or stop at 3am, which ever came first.  By 3am there were still 50 players left in the tournament, so they will return on Tuesday to find a champion.

621 players would cash in the tournament, so the pace at the start of the day was quite quick until it reached the money bubble, but once that was past, again the pace picked up as players lowered their starting hand requirements.

The overall leader from the first day JC Tran was eliminated in 68th place. The second day saw the chipleaders break the million chip mark, first to do so was Danny Fuhs, who eventually finished the day in second place behind the new leader,  Robert Comegys who has acquired $1,186,000 to take the lead.

Thang Luu wrote himself into the record books by winning the $1,500 Omaha Hi/Lo tournament for the second year running. He overcame a record field and fought a tense heads-up battle against Ed Smith to take the title.

 The last 19 players fought down to a final table of nine, and when it got to the heads-up battle Luu held the lead for the whole time. There were several all-ins that ended in chopped pots but Thang Luu finally got the better of his opponent when he had the better of their two pairs.

On the second part of the first day of what has been dubbed the “Stimulus Special”, another 3,014 players fight it out to advance in this huge field. Again a host of top names were amongst the players taking part, including Phil Ivey, Erik Lindgren, David “Chino” Reem and John Juanda. It was another well known poker name that emerged at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the day, JC Tran .

The 385 players that remained from Day 1b, together with the 375 from Day 1a will try and play down to a final table.

The biggest buy-in hold’em tournament in the history of the WSOP and it was the Russian Vitaly Lunkin who took the win, overcoming a star studded field and a tense heads-up battle with Isaac Haxton.

Haxton went into the final day with a chiplead that he would keep going into the heads-up battle with the Russian. The day started slowly, with Ted Forrest being the first player to be eliminated. Noah Schwartz knocked out Forrest, but Schwartz himself would be the next to go at the hands of Greg Raymer.

Raymer also knocked out Lex Veldhuis, but then it was the turn of Haxton to get into his stride on the final table.  Alec Torelli was his first victim, closely followed by Justin Bonomo. Haxton then knocked out Dani Stern in fourth place.

Greg Raymer was next to bust out at the hands of Isaac Haxton, who then had a 2 – 1 chiplead over Lunkin going into the heads-up stage. They played for over two hours with the chiplead changing all the time. The deciding hand saw Haxton hit the flop with bottom pair, only to see Lunkin table A-A. Haxton had outs,but none came to his rescue and the Russian took the win.

Haxton collected $1,168,556 for his second place, while Vitaly Lunkin picked up the winners cheque for $1,891,012 and his second World Series Of Poker bracelet.

The World Series Of Poker $1000 NLHE tournament has been unofficially dubbed the “Stimulus Special”. It was hopped to have the largest tournament field outside of the WSOP Main Eventand that is exactly what they achieved.

On Day 1a 3000 players began the tournament in four separate playing areas. Some well known names were amongst the multitudes including Chris Ferguson, Andy Black, Barry Greenstein and Vanessa Rousso, amongst the celebrity players were rapper Nelly and director Nick Cassavetes. But none of these players advanced through to day 2 of the tournament. 

At the end of the day only 375 of the players that started were left to battle it out on day 2. The chipleader at the end of this stage is Jeremiah DeGreef, who was only one of two players with a stack over $100k, with the average stack size being under $24,000

Thang Luu has lost his overnight chiplead to relatively unknown Ed Smith. Luu, winner of this event in 2008 lost a significant percentage of his stack mid-day, but battled back to stay in contention. Ed Smith is no stranger to this event in the past, finishing 23rd in 2008 and was runner up in 1999.

Nineteen players were left at the end of the second day including, a lot of the more well known players had gone to the rail during the day including, Eli Elezra, Annie Duke, Erik Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth and Andy Bloch. Players still remaining in the tournament include Freddy Deeb, Jordan Rich and Ming Reslock who eliminated her better known husband Chris Reslock.

On the third day of the $40,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament the 23 remaining participants played down to the nine handed final table. In the biggest buy-in event ever in the WSOP it will be Isaac Haxton who goes into the final day as chipleader. Haxton started the day as one of the smaller stacks, but managed to triple up to stay in contention.

It took less then eight hours for the final table to be decided and the third days action continued at the same pace that it ended on Day2 as four players went out within the first few laps of the table. Andrew Robl, Frank Kassela, David Chiu and Niel Channing were the first four to go out all receiving $71,858 in prize money.

Then it was Andrew Black who went to the rail by Dani Stern, as the remaining players condensed down to two tables.  Matt Glantz was knocked out next by Lex Veldhuis, Stern also eliminated Clark Hamagami in seventeenth place. The next player to go out was Doshi Suresh at the hands of Greg Raymer. Veldhuis claimed his next victim in David Baker.

Brian Rast was busted out when he ran into Vitaly Lunkin’s Quad 5’s. Brian Townsend was next out as he came off the loser in a three-way pot against Alec Torelli and Noah Schwartz. Haxton continued his push to the top of the leaderboard by eliminating Matthew Marafioti in twelth place. Keith Lehr was knocked out by Raymer and then the remaining players were seated at one table.The final elimination was Tony G, who was knocked out by Vitaly Lunkin.

The chipstacks and the Final Table seating are as follows.

1. Ted Forrest  –  560,000
2. Noah Schwart  –  660,000
3. Alec Torelli  –  2,340,000
4. Isaac Haxton  –  5,955,000
5. Greg Raymer  –  3,345,000
6. Justin Bonomo  –  1,685,000
7. Lex Veldhuis  –  3,805,000
8. Dani Stern  –  1,3000,000
9. Vitaly Lunkin  –  4,565,000