WSOP Highlights

Las Vegas - Since May 27^th, a lot has happened in Las Vegas during the 40^th rendition of poker’s Greatest Show on Earth. With some major format changes this year, Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc., has put on an impressive show for the 2009 World Series of Poker® at the Rio. The real fun began with a one-time only, $40,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em event, continued with the $1,000 buy-in “Stimulus Special” and an inaugural Champions Invitational Tournament. This year, the powers that be decided to rid the series of the “Buy a Bracelet Brigade,” removing the re-buy/add-on tournaments (with the exception of the first ever $3,000 Triple Chance No-limit event). With record attendance and payouts in nearly all of the 55 events, this year’s series should eclipse last year’s record numbers. Prior to the Main Event, we decided to provide you with a recap of the first fifty-five events of the 2009 WSOP.

The lower of the menus to the right is for each article covering the 2009 WSOP. Additional coverage of the WSOP - Europe, the November Nine and the Final Table will be added.

Event 2, the largest buy-in open tournament in Hold’em history, found 203 of the world’s best poker players putting down $40,000 each to compete for the non-Main Event record first prize of nearly $2,000,000 out of more than $7 million prize pool. Chris Moneymaker showed flashes of brilliance that gave him the 2003 Main Event title, was near the top of the leader board for much of the first two days, until being knocked out 10 places from the money. GoDaddy.com’s newest spokesperson, Vanessa Rousso, finished in 27^th, the final pay-off position, and was the top female competitor that also included Annie Duke, Jennifer Harmon, Kathy Liebert and relative newcomer Heather Sue Mercer. 2004 Champion, Greg Raymer made the final table, finishing in a respectable 3rd place, took control at the end of the second day and showed why he has been successful since turning professional following his Main Event victory. An article with more detail on the first two days of this event, Sweating Humberto Brenes, is available in the archives. In a hotly contested heads-up match, Russian professional Vitaly Lunkin out-dueled Issac Haxton for the commemorative event’s title. Consummate professional Ted Forrest made the final table, along with Internet Young Guns Justin Bonomo and Lex “RaSZi” Veldhuis. Dani Stern, Alec Torelli and Noah Schwartz rounded out the top nine. A complete list of the starting lineup for this event is available by emailing dan@pokerinsider.org.

Event 4, the first ever $1,000 buy-in open tournament, dubbed “The Stimulus Special,” set a non-WSOP Main Event record with 6,012 entrants. Steve Sung took down the title and pocketed over $750,000 when his pocket Kings held up against Peter Vilandos’ pocket Eights to end the five day event.

74 year old Freddie Ellis, a semi-retired real estate developer from New York City picks up a Gold Bracelet in his first WSOP attempt, the $10,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud. Freddie regularly graces Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino $600/$1,200 Mixed Game (7-Stud, Omaha-8 and Hold’em). It was a dramatic 13 hour final table battle that saw almost every seat taken by a well known poker professional player. The Final table consisted of Eric Drache, Ville Wahlbeck, Max Pescatori, Hasan Habib, Ivan Shertzer, Greg 'FBT' Mueller, Tim Phan and Jeffery Lisandro. The 142 players who placed $10,000 on the table to compete brought the total prize pool to $1,134,800, with Freddie taking home $373,744. Ten years ago, Seven-Card Stud was the most popular game in casinos on the East Coast, primarily in big markets including Atlantic City and Foxwoods.

Seven-Card Stud is becoming a dying game due to the increased popularity of Texas Hold’em. When the Atlantic City casinos were first allowed to spread poker, Seven-Card Stud games outnumbered Hold’em many times over. Most East Coast casinos did not even spread Hold’em or Omaha, since Seven-Card Stud was the game of choice. Everything changed in 2003 when most people credit (or blame) Chris Moneymaker’s Main Event victory and the use of the hole cam, to instantly created millions of new player curious about No-Limit Hold’em. Though Moneymaker and Greg Raymer are normally credited with the amateur takeover in the Main Event, Robert Varkoni, the 2002 winner was actually the first amateur to start the current string of non-professional victors in the Main Event. Though Seven-Card Stud has been steadily declining in popularity, it remains popular enough to continue inclusion on the WSOP schedule.

Brock Parker, the master of the short-handed table, wins two gold bracelets in 2009. In the $2,500 Six-Handed Limit Hold'em event he defeated Daniel Negreanu and in the $2,500 Six-Handed No-limit Hold’em Event he bested Joseph Serock for the title.

Event 49, the $50K H.O.R.S.E. event wrapped up its high-stakes action with a star-studded final table. Swedish pro Erik Sagstrom began with the chip lead, but Vitaly Lunkin was close behind. The pros at the final table, including Huck Seed, Chau Giang and Eric Seidel, had 18 bracelets between them. Eric Seidel had a chance to win his ninth gold bracelet. Two decades ago, Eric, along with Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan were know in Las Vegas circles as Pokers’ Brat Pack.

By the end of the day, that number became 19 as David “Albie” Bach defeated John Hanson for the bracelet and the coveted David “Chip” Reese trophy. This event is what many believe is the true Poker Players’ Championship. Not only is the $50,000 the highest buy-in in the world for an open tournament, it is the game with the most diverse disciplines. The game changes at each level through one of the five games that make up H.O.R.S.E.. These games, No-limit Hold’em, Omaha, RAZZ (Seven-Card Stud Low), Seven-Card Stud High and Omaha High Low, Eight or Better, require an entirely different mind-set and skill-set. This year had the lowest attendance (50% decrease from the last two years), with fewer than a hundred entrants, in the tournaments’ four year run. This is attributed to many players opting to use their economy depleted bankroll for the $40,000 Anniversary Hold’em Event.

The increase in popularity of Mixed Games was shown this year with two lower buy-in H.O.R.S.E. events, a Mixed Hold’em event, the Pot-limit Hold’em/Omaha tourney, and the Omaha/7-Stud Hi-Lo event. There were also World Championship Events in Mixed Games and H.O.R.S.E. this year.

Russian Professional Vitaly Lunkin, besides picking up some jewelry and a nice chunk of change at this year’s WSOP, he has also picked up a new title, “King of the Big Buy-in.” At this year’s second event, the Fortieth Anniversary $40,000 Buy-in No-limit Hold’em tournament, Vitaly picked up his second gold bracelet, matching the one he won in last year’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event. In the $10,000 Pot-limit Omaha World Championship he made it into a heated heads-up battle, before losing to Matt Graham. He finished a respectable 21st in the $10,000 Mixed Games World Championship. Finally, in the poker world’s highest buy-in open event, the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship, he finished grabbed another final table with a 4th place, behind eventual winner David “Albie” Bach. In the four events this year, with a buy-in of over $110,000, he pocketed over two and a half million dollars.

Greg 'FBT' Mueller was not “Limited” by the competition this year. With two bracelets in three Limit Hold’em events in 2009, Greg shows that his poker prowess is not limited to the Internet. In his showdown with Marc Naalden in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout making him the fourth person to claim more than one in 2009. There was a guaranteed multi-bracelet winner in his heads-up battle with Marc Naalden, since Marc had won a bracelet in the $2,000 Limit Hold’em event. Showing his poker diversity, Greg also made the final table in the $10,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud event.

Several times during this year’s tournament schedule we have seen people apparently on the wrong side of the felt. Matt Savage, best known as a WSOP and WPT Tournament Director and Co-founder of the Tournament Director’s Association traded his official titles (he was WSOP TD for three years a few years back) for a seat in this year’s tournament, making the final table in the Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better event. He finished 5th in the $1,500 buy-in tournament. Matt also cashed in the $1,500 buy-in Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better event with a 60th place finish. Another player we are used to seeing looking down at the table, instead of across it, was the 32nd place finisher in Seven-Card Stud High Low event was WSOP Commentator Norman Chad, who made his first WSOP cash. After congratulating Norm I had him sign “Winning Blue-Collar Hold’em” under his pokerism “A little truth, a little dare and a lie thrown in here and there.” After reading the pokerism he said, “I don’t remember saying that, but it sounds like what I said before my third marriage.”