World Series Of Poker NLHE Bounty Event Concludes
US poker pro and coach Ryan Leng earns his biggest pay day yet and first winner’s bracelet
Thursday afternoon at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas saw US poker pro and coach Ryan Leng score his first winner’s bracelet and biggest yet pay day of $272,765 in taking down the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Bounty competition.
The event ran for an unscheduled fourth day and attracted 1,983 starters, generating a prize pool which with bounties was worth $2,677,050.
Leng and Estonian player Ranno Sootla dominated much of the third and fourth day action, eliminating several opponents to end up facing each other in the heads up.
Leng held a 2 to 1 chip lead, but Sootla staged a fightback based on a major double up around 30 minutes in and managed to reverse the chip counts, prompting Leng to respond by drawing level again at the first official break.
The duo duked it out for another two hours before Leng managed to gain the initiative long enough to eliminate the Estonian and send him home with the runner up prize of $168,464.
Other final table cashes included:
3 – Jay Farber – $121,932
4 – Christian Nolte – $89,151
5 – Javier Gomez – $65,851
6 – Russell Rosenblum – $49,146
7 – John Gulino – $37,063
8 – Mark Mazza – $28,247
9 – Mikhail Semin – $21,759
Joey Couden Wins $1,500 Plo8 Event At World Series Of Poker
Ohio poker pro banks $244,370 and collects his first WSOP bracelet
Event 53 – the $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better competition is in this year’s World Series of Poker record books as a win for Ohio poker pro Joey Couden, who claimed his first winner’s bracelet and the main prize of $244,370 for the victory.
The win was the largest of Couden’s eight cashes at this year’s WSOP so far.
Many of the game’s big names were among the 935 starting entries, with several of them making the final table after four hours of action Thursday in the form of Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, Bruno Fitoussi and Eli Ezra.
When Eli Ezra was eliminated by Couden at third for $106,183, the final two players were given the option of an extra day’s play to complete the heads up, but chose to continue, with Couden initially holding a 3 to 1 chip lead over Fitoussi.
After being in low-stack danger country on at least two occasions, Fitoussi scored a couple of double ups which made his situation less perilous, but he still lagged behind Couden, and with just minutes left before the day’s play was wrapped up Couden was able to shut the door and send Fitoussi away with a second placing prize of $150,990.
Other final table cashes looked like this:
4 – Mike Matusow – $75,708
5 – Chris Conrad – $54,637
6 – Kim Kallman – $40,141
7 – Dustin Pattinson – $29,862
8 – Gregory Jamison – $22,541
9 – Daniel Negreanu – $17,268
Veiga Claims His First World Series Of Poker Bracelet
Portuguese pro wins six figure main prize just three months after taking home over half a million Euros in Spanish tournament
Portuguese poker pro Diogo Veiga is enjoying a good run at the poker tournament tables this year with two big six-figure cashes in the past three months.
Back in April he took home Euro 555,000 after a sixth placing in the PartyPoker Millions Barcelona Grand Final, and on Friday he claimed the Euro 522,715 main prize in the World Series of Poker $3,000 buy-in Big Blind Antes NLHE competition, along with his first WSOP bracelet.
1,020 entries were recorded for the event, creating a prize pool worth $2,754,000 from which 153 players cashed.
US poker pro and WSOP bracelet holder Barry Hutter looked the most likely winner at the very international final table as he eliminated Bulgaria’s Radoslav Stoyanov at third for $228,241 and Belgian player Jonathan Abdellatif at fourth for $163,404 to enter the heads up against Veiga with a 3 to 2 chip lead.
Veiga was far from done, however, and courtesy of a major double up was able to get back in the game. Thereafter the lead see-sawed between two aggressive and talented players until Veiga established dominance and was able to dispatch Hutter with a second placing pay day of $323,019.
The rest of the final table cashed:
- Tom McCormick $118,552
- David Yan $87,179
- Anna Antimony $64,991
- Cathal Shine $49,126
- Todd Ivens $37,660
Ryan ‘Toosick’ Tosoc Wins World Series Of Poker Online Championship Event
Chicago poker pro emerges victorious from a 15-hour marathon
The World Series of Poker $1,000 buy-in NLHE Online Championship event over the weekend turned out to be something of an endurance test, running for over 15 hours with a four-hour final table and a two-hour heads up.
The event pulled in 1,635 entries (1,180 unique players and 455 re-entries) generating a prize pool worth $1,553,250 which allowed 180 players to cash.
Chicago poker pro Ryan “Toosick” Tosoc started his main run for the top fairly late in the game but managed to turn it into his first WSOP bracelet and the main prize of $283,778 after defeating Anthony ‘flawlessbink’ Maio in an exciting heads up in which the lead changed at least six times; Maio worked hard for his runner-up prize of $175,206.
Final table pay days included:
3rd: Joel ‘AjaWilson22’ Feldman – $124,570
4th: James ‘5.56cal.’ Robinson – $89,777
5th: Justin ‘LappyPoker’ Lapka – $65,391
6th: Markus ‘thegreatrise’ Gonsalves – $48,306
7th: Russell ‘AntonChigurh’ Powers – $36,190
8th: Aurelian ‘Winamax’ Guiglini – $27,337
9th: Aditya ‘pokerpop76’ Sushant – $20,968
Tough Heads Up Concludes World Series Of Poker Razz Event
Oklahoma poker pro Calvin Anderson scores his second winner’s bracelet in hotly contested competition
Over five hours of intense heads up action in the four day $10,000 buy-in Razz Championship concluded Sunday at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas with Oklahoma poker pro Calvin Anderson claiming his second winner’s bracelet and the first prize of $309,220.
The competition recorded 119 entries, creating a prize pool worth $1,118,600.
The final table included respected names like Frank Kassela, Mike Leah and John Hennigan, and it was Kassela, a former WSOP Player of the Year with three bracelets, who survived to face Anderson in the heads up on Friday.
Over five hours the duo traded the lead several times in an exciting encounter before play was stopped for the night, with Anderson holding an almost 5 to 1 chip lead. On Saturday they returned to the felt with Anderson retaining the advantage with 80 percent of the chips on the table.
Despite a determined effort from Kassela it was too big a margin to overcome, and in just three more hands Kassela had to concede defeat and the consolation of a runner up prize worth $191,111.
This was Anderson’s second biggest tournament pay day – two years ago he won $324,597 as the runner up in the Little One for One Drop event. Other final table cashes included:
3rd: Julien Martini, $134,587
4th: Mike Leah, $96,744
5th: Jerry Wong, $71,014
6th: Alex Balandin, $53,253
7th: John Hennigan, $40,817
8th: Dzmitry Urbanovich, $31,992
Chance ‘Bingshui’ Kornuth Wins The Last Of This Year’S Online High Roller Bracelets
Kornuth’s second bracelet makes him a rare live and online champion
Las Vegas poker pro and coach Chance ‘Bingshui” Kornuth achieved the rare distinction of becoming both a live tournament and online World Series of Poker bracelet holder early Sunday morning when he took down the $3,200 buy-in WSOP.com Online High Roller event, besting a field of 356 with 124 re-buys to claim his second WSOP bracelet.
Kornuth claimed the lion’s share of the $1,459,200 prize pool, which enabled 63 entrants to cash, taking home $341,598.
It took nine hours for the final table to form with Kornuth and David ‘bewater’ Goodman holding a significant lead over the other players, a position which they maintained through to the heads up.
Kornuth held a 3 to 1 chip lead over his opponent, which he quickly leveraged into a 5 to 1 lead that Goodman could not overtake.
Goodman’s second placing pay day in this fourth and final online competition in this year’s WSOP was $212,021.
Other final table cashes included:
3rd: Tim ‘poker.’ Nuter – $144,168
4th: Noah ‘ThePunter’ Bronstein – $99,809
5th: Frank ‘flcrivello’ Crivello – $70,625
6th: Taylor ‘ReadyGambo’ Black – $50,926
7th: Justin ‘kingfortune’ Liberto – $37,355
8th: Jonas ‘LobyPewis’ Mackoff – $28,016
9th: Pete ‘petechen’ Chen – $21,596
World Series Of Poker Bracelet At Last For Poker Pro
Jean-Robert shrugs the monkey off his back with win in NLHE Six Handed event
One of the frustrations in Las Vegas poker pro Jean-Robert Bellande’s otherwise successful career has been his inability to corral a World Series of Poker winner’s bracelet, but he finally managed to lift that monkey off his back over the weekend with a win in the $5,000 buy-in NLHE Six-Handed event.
In addition to finally claiming his first bracelet, the 47-year-old professional player picked up the $616,302 main prize; it was his second biggest career WSOP cash, and it was executed in style.
Bellande started final table action with a 5 million chip lead which he retained, other than for a brief period in which his last opponent managed to snatch it during the heads up, only to lose it again to a determined Bellande.
The Las Vegas pro started heads up play with a strong chip lead, facing Scots player Dean Lyall (30) but ran into a two-hour string of poor cards in which Lyall was able to close the chip gap and then briefly seize the lead before Bellande managed a recovery and eliminated Lyall at second place for $380,895.
621 entries were recorded for the event, creating a prize pool of $2,887,650 from which 94 players cashed.
Other final table cashes included:
3rd: Andrew Graham, $254,684
4th: Tay Nguyen, $173,598
5th: Eric Blair, $120,669
6th: Kacper Pyzara, $85,570
In related news, 38-year-old US player Jeremy Perrin earned his first WSOP bracelet and $250,000 after besting a massive field in the $365 buy-in Giant NLHE event, which attracted 8,920 entries, creating a prize pool of $2,676,000 that meant 527 players made money.
Perrin beat Puerto Rico amateur player Luis Vazquez (39) in the heads, leaving him with a runner up prize worth $154,512.
Today (Monday July 2) will see the start of the first flight of this year’s $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Main Event, which is expected as always to draw thousands of entries.
The first starting flight is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Las Vegas time with players holding 50,000 in chips. Levels will be 120 minutes long throughout, and after each level players enjoy a 20 minute break.
Galfond Wins Third Wsop Gold Bracelet
Conquers Event 60: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship
Phill Galfond has added a third WSOP bracelet to his trophy case having outlasted 237 players and winning Event 60: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship at the 49th World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournament.
Galfond (33) outplayed Michael McKenna heads-up for the title, bracelet and top prize of $567,788, his twentieth WSOP career cash taking his total earnings to around 2.8 million dollars.
Final Table Payouts:
1 : Phil Galfond – $567,788
2 : Michael McKenna – $350,922
3 : Ali Abduljabbar – $240,497
4 : Chad Power – $168,275
5 : Chris Lee – $120,263
6th: Marco Johnson – $87,830
7th: David “ODB” Baker – $65,579
8th: Yong Wang – $39,149
World Series Of Poker Main Event Kicks Off (Update)
925 entries on first of three starting flights in $10,000 buy-in NLHE competition
The first of three starting days for the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Main Event kicked off in Las Vegas Monday with 925 hopefuls registering – up from last year’s 795 Day 1A entries.
The start comes at the end of a month of WSOP tournaments that has so far seen over 60 gold bracelets awarded, with over 90,000 total entries and more than $129 million in prize money paid out.
To accommodate massively increased television and live streaming international coverage there will by no two-day break this year; once the starting day survivors combine into a single field the action will run without a full day off until a champion emerges.
WSOP spokesman Seth Palansky explained:
“We are going to reach the final table of nine players on July 11. We will play a three-day final table, with the expectation being that we will play from nine to six on the first night, six to three the next night, and then down to a champion on the 14th.”
Among the high profile characters in Las Vegas for the Main Event is John Hesp, the popular English grandad and caravan salesman who became famous last year for his positive demeanour and unusually colourful jackets. He finished fourth in the 2017 main event, taking home a $2,6 million prize, and his exploits are about to be made into a film.
Also in town again is last year’s personable Main Event champ Scott Blumstein and another former Main Event winner Jerry Yang, both of whom were active on the first day of play. Blumstein had the honour making the “shuffle up and deal” call. Unfortunately he did not last beyond the third level, and was eliminated by Brian Yoon.
UPDATE:
At the end of the flight’s five, two-hour levels, only 656 players remained, led by Timothy Lau on 338,700 chips. Other top players who made it through the day included Kevin Boudreau, Daniel Fuhs, Jake Schindler, Owen Crowe, Seth Davies, Gordon Vayo, Lexy Gavin, 2005 Main Event champion Joe Hachem, Bruno Fitoussi and Matt Waxman.
On the other side of the coin, notable names who fell during the day were: Jonathan Little, Chance Kornuth, Brian Rast, 2016 Main Event champion Qui Nguyen, and 2007 Main Event champion Jerry Yang.
Third World Series Of Poker Bracelet For Galfond
Lack of playing practice and knowledge of Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo did not stop online and live tourney pro
Online and live poker pro Phil Galfond (33) has claimed his third World Series of Poker bracelet and prize money of $567,788 after winning the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship.
It was a remarkable achievement, given that Galfond has been too busy preparing his new Run It Once Poker online business to play, and had limited previous experience in Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo.
The three day event drew 237 entrants, among them many respected professionals.
Galfond faced Michael McKenna in the heads up, and won a major pot early on which gave him the lead and momentum to retain it, slowly grinding McKenna down and finally eliminating him for a second placing prize of $350,922.
Other final table cashes included:
3rd: Ali Abduljabbar – $240,497
4th: Chad Power – $168,275
5th: Chris Lee – $120,263
6th: Marco Johnson – $87,830
7th: David “ODB” Baker – $65,579
8th: Yong Wang – $39,149
Arizona Cash Game Grinder Wins World Series Of Poker Seven Card Stud Hi Lo Event
Dan Matsuzuki decided to enter the competition on an impulse…and it rewarded him with his first bracelet and $364,387 in prize money
Arizona cash game grinder Dan Matsuzuki (28) made an impulsive decision urged on by a friend to enter the World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in Seven Card Stud Hi Lo championship event, and it paid handsome dividends.
Matsuzuki bested a field of 141 to claim his first World Series of Poker winner’s bracelet and the top prize of $364,387 despite starting final table action as the low stack. At the top end of chip stacks at the final table, holding a massive advantage was one-bracelet holder Scott Bohlman from Chicago, who stayed with the action to finally face Matsuzuki in the heads up.
By that stage the Arizona grinder had worked his way up through the stacks and held a slight advantage on Bohlman.
That didn’t last long as Bohlman evened the stacks and initiated a spirited exchange over the next two levels that saw the lead change several times before Matsuzuki got a grip on the game and extended his lead to around 5 to 1.
It was too high a hill for Bohlman to climb, and the coup de gras came when Matsuzuki won a massive pot and soon thereafter eliminated his tough opponent, sending Bohlman home with the runner up prize of $225,210.
Other final table cashes included:
3rd: Ken Aldridge – $154,648
4th: Chris Vitch – $108,739
5th: Daham Wang – $78,739
6th: Jerry Wong – $57,855
7th: Bryce Yockey – $43,833
8th: Joseph Michael – $34,089
World Seres Of Poker Main Event Second Starting Flight Signs 2,378 Players
1,801 survive to go further in poker’s most prestigious event
The second starting flight for this year’s World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in NLHE Main Event attracted 2,378 entries Wednesday, but only 1,801 survived to go further in the competition when the survivors of all three starting days combine.
The second starting day field this year was up 10 percent on 2017, and combined with the 925 first flight starters (up 16 percent) brings entries so far to 3,303 – a 12 percent improvement on the 2017 numbers at this point.
The organisers anticipate an even bigger entry list for the third and final starting list.
659 players survived the first flight, so the field from both starting days headed to the combined next stage of the competition is already 2,460 strong.
When the second starter flight ended the chip leader was Smain Mamouni on 311,600, chased by Samuel Bernabeu (309,500) and Barbara Rogers (307,000).
The survivors included Brit grandad and caravan salesman John Hesp playing in his second WSOP Main Event in his signature rainbow jacket and panama hat. Hesp made fourth last year for around $2.6 million and is a popular and positive character; he ended the day with 63,900 chips, after launching the day’s activity with the shuffle up and deal call.
Other notables who made it through were Alex Foxen, two-time main event winner and ten-time bracelet winner Johnny Chan (151,100), Shaun Deeb (143,000), 2000 main event winner Chris Ferguson (134,900), George Danzer (117,800) and Barry Shulman (88,000).
Those who were eliminated included poker streamer Jason Somerville, 2006 main event champion Jaime Gold, Noah Schwartz, three-time bracelet winner Doug Polk, Belgian ace Kenny Hallaert, 2004 world champion Greg Raymer and 2015 main event fourth-place finisher Max Steinberg.
Making a grand entrance and reprising his Roman emperor performance in past years was Phil Hellmuth, who still has the largest number of WSOP bracelets. This year he chose the fantasy theme Thor and arrived in costume, brandishing the legendary hammer and surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women dressed as Wonderwomen. Check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5J_yzENIUg.
World Series Of Poker Main Event Attracts Second Largest Field In Its History
Last starting flight pulls in a star-studded 4,571 entries
The World Series of Poker organisers anticipated a large field for the third starting flight in this year’s $10,000 buy-in NLHE Main Event and they were not disappointed; 4,571 players, many of them respected names in the game, turned up for the last starting day, with the shuffle up and deal call made by the man who inspired online poker back in 2003 with a main event win, Chris Moneymaker.
Unfortunately Moneymaker will not be repeating his achievement this year; he was eliminated during the day’s intense action.
Delighted organisers reported that the total entry list for the Main Event was 8 percent up on last year at 7,874 overall and the biggest in twelve years for the event. It generated a massive $74,015,600 prize pool that will ensure a main prize of $8.8 million and cashes of at least $15,000 for the top 1,182 players.
Notable name spotters reported the presence and survival at the end of the day of formidable players like Loni Harwood, Chino Rheem, Joseph Cheong, Jessica Dawley, Cyndy Violette, Tex Barch, James Akenhead, Joe Cada, Jonathan Duhamel, Robert Varkonyi, Martin Jacobson, Phil Hellmuth, Davidi Kitai, James Obst, Phil Ivey, Robert Varkonyi, Sylvain Loosli, Dario Sammartno, Cliff Josephy, John Juanda, Matt Savage, Brandon Shack-Harris, John Hennigan, Andy Black, Liv Boeree, Chris Moorman, Todd Brunson, Humberto Brenes and Bertrand Grospellier.
The day ended with around 3,480 survivors who will join the 2,453 survivors of the first two starting flights when the fields combine Thursday, creating an impressive combined field of 5,930.
Topping the chip counts at the end of the third starter flight was French cash game player Samuel Touil (33) with 352,800 in chips, hotly pursued by US players Pete Forsstrom (283,200), Robert Covert (240,300).
The French pro’s chip stack is the biggest of all three starting flight leaders.
Big names who did not make it through the last starting day included: Daniel Negreanu, Marcel Luske, Christopher Vitch, Dutch Boyd, John Racener, Niall Farrell, Vanessa Selbst, Mike Watson, and Daniel Colman.