Monday saw World Series action continue with 2 more bracelets to be given out, as well as 2 more final tables to be set! In this article we’ll cover Day 2 from events 15 and 16 as well as the first day of events 17 and 18, of which event 18 is considered to be one of the biggest events on the schedule and should see quite a bit of action. The events where final tables where played and bracelets were awarded today are covered in separate articles (see Event 13 results and Event 14 results) so will not be included in this report.

Let’s get to it!

Event #15 $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Ladies Event Day 2
Monday saw the ladies get off and running again and heading for the elusive final table, there were some notables still remaining the top 10 to start the day is as follows

Shavonne Mitchell 94,000
Alice Talbot 92,700
Roslyn Quarto 86,100
Olga Varkonyi 83,800
Christine Priday 82,900
Lisa Ahumada 74,100
Hoa Nguyen 71,800
Nancy Ricks 68,700
Tina Dubowy 67,900
Sue Porter 66,200

In day 1 this event saw a slightly smaller field turn out then expected, while at the same time saw over 95% of the field head home with only 61 of the 1,190 lady field coming back. We start with level 10 and 600/1200 blinds with 100 ante. WPT ladies champion Nancy Todd Tyner was the first to the rail on day 2 when she shoved in with a 10d 9d on a 10s 3c 2h board only to meet Sue Porters Kh Ks when the turn came a 2s it just made the 9h on the river a bitter taste for Nancy as she walked out and pocketed $3,032 for her efforts. With just over 1 level in the books for day 2 the following players have been shown the rail and collect $3,032 for it.

55. Fukumi Hamasaki
56. Sunshine Gardner
57. Penny Musk
58. Joanne Owsley
59. Julie Willis
60. Michelle Law
61. Michelle Lam
62. Nancy Todd Tyner

The first notable of the day found her way out of the tournament when Bodog Poker sponsored Evelyn Ng’s AQ flopped a Ace but lost when a 7 made a set for her opponent leaving her short stacked in which she battled a bit but was finally sent packing when her Kc 3c lost to Ah Jh which hit an un-needed Ace on the river. Kathy Liebert followed Evelyn shortly after when her Ks Jc ran into Marla Crumpler’s Kh Kc and when a 5s 3d 2d flop hit they got the last of Kathy’s 6k in the pot and Kathy left graciously they finished 48 and 47th respectively. Olga Varkonyi, wife of 2002 WSOP Main Event winner Robert Varkonyi, was among the chip leaders heading into the day but after just over 3 hours found herself heading home when her Q’s ran into Svetlana Gromenkova AJ suited when the flop came Ac Js 2d it left Olga in bad shape and was unable to hit either running broadway or a set and found her self out of this year’s event in 37th pocketing $3,682. In the hour that comprised level 13 we found 7 more ladies head home and were down to 31 and near the final 3 tables and the home stretch. With a couple of quick eliminations action was stopped to re-draw the final 26 players to their new tables, and after just one more hour we find another 6 players gone. World Series veteran Linda Johnson found her self on the rail in 23rd place the former bracelet winner moved all-in from the cutoff and walked into the pocket 10’s of Vesenia Garcia in the BB and when a 10 hit the flop it was pretty much over, Linda collected $5,848.

With just over 6 hours in the book we had gone from 61 down to the final 17 with one major notable sill around Van Nguyen wife of the always expressive and often under recognized Men “The Master” Nguyen who is second all-time in WSOP cashes. Vesenia Garcia found her luck still running crazy hot when she eliminated Hoa Nguyen with AJ vs. Q’s when she flopped open-ended with J against top set but hit not one but running straight cards to give her a straight from 7 – Q and over 225k in chips. This was followed shortly there after when she raised it to 33k in late position and was re-raised another 36,500 making Christine Fanelli all-in with Ad Kc against two red 6’s from Garcia when the flop came Jh 8s 6s it was allover save the paper work and Garcia finds her self over 250k. Just prior to the Dinner break Van Nguyen found herself in a tough spot with Kc Qd facing an all-in bet from an early position raiser in the form of Anh Le after spending a couple minutes in the tank and I’m sure feeling the pressure of Men staring at her she called and found her self up against Ac Kh when the King came off on the flop it left her in tough shape and when the board went running double pair the A played and Van was done collecting $10,179. When Tina Dubowy found her self battling Patty Till in the blinds, Tina completed and Anh checked when the flop hit 9c 5s 5h it was check check and after a 6s on the turn the fire works began when Tina bet 15k and was raised to 60k by Patty forcing Tina to call all-in which she did and then found herself needing a 6 for a full-house or a 8 to complete the straight but it didn’t materialize and instead Patty turned trip 5’s into 5’s full of A’s on the river leaving us with the final 9 that will return on Tuesday to continue the battle for the bracelet!

Seat 1: Patty Till 312,000
Seat 2: Roslyn Quarto 73,000
Seat 3: Marla Crumpler 163,000
Seat 4: Svetlana Gromenkova 553,000
Seat 5: Sue Porter 211,000
Seat 6: Debbie Mitchell 224,000
Seat 7: Christine Priday 448,000
Seat 8: Vesenia Garcia 210,000
Seat 9: Anh Le 191,000

Event #16 $2,000 Omaha Hi/Lo Day 2
After the first day the field of 553 found it’s self slimmed down to 169 who were slated to return at 3pm today and are hoping to find themselves down to 9 by days end. With a leader board riddled with the world’s best as well as many Full Tilt Pros who continue to impress at this years event we will be in for a tough day!

Ivan Demidov 40,300
Rouhollan Sohayegh 35,800
James Richburg 35,000
Josh Arieh 33,000
Kevin Petersen 32,500
David Williams 31,000
Scott Clements 30,000
Kia Hooshmand 28,200
Mark Roland 27,500
Richard Weeks 27,300

The day started off quietly with the only interesting thing happening was “Hollywood” Dave doubling up quickly and David Williams telling his table that he will be sitting out for the first while as he focuses his attention on the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout that began today at 12pm. After just over 2 hours of play Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke continues to make noise, he is most well known for finishing 2nd to Gus Hansen at the Aussie Millions in 07, and more interestingly for the interaction that he experience while trying to get sponsored by Full Tilt Poker in which the agent for Full Tilt accidentally included remarks from Howard Lederer in which Howard told the rep that “The guy’s a freak and a very weird dude. He is also quite young. I think we should stay away.” (more details) None the less Jimmy still sits among the leader board, after finally focusing some attention on this event David Williams found himself continuing to chip up nicely until he ran into to big hands the second of which his 3rd nut low found itself counterfeited on the river and now David sits at just 47k. The first notable to find himself out of the event today was PokerStars’ Barry Greenstein who saw the pot he was involved in chopped and himself down and out for the day. However in his typical fashion he took out a copy of his book and signed it with the event, the hand, and how it played out and presented it to Kristy Gazes who took the high half. David Williams couldn’t stop his spin out of control as he went from among the top of the board to done within an hour. As the dinner break approaches Men Nguyen found himself in a multiway pot where he got all his chips in with one caller and on the river tabled a Straight J and a 5 low to scoop the pot and stay alive with the bubble nearing however shortly after returning from break he ended up the bubble boy and now all the electronics gotta be gone and the pay day’s begin. We are down to the final 54! Only 45 to go!

After folding in the BB with only 10k left Jimmy Fricke found himself imbedded in some controversy regarding a table move that left him on the button once that was sorted and he was moved yet again he got his last remaining chips in and triple up when he flopped a set of Co’s and turned Co’s full leaving him with 56k. Normally in a tournament once the bubble goes so does at least 15% of the field that were trying to hang on however with the nature of a split pot game this is not the case here and after nearly two hours we have lost only 8 players.

46. Chris Birchby
47. Jay Heimowitz
48. Kyle Landrum
49. Jason Loehde
50. David Fernandez
51. Gary Turner
52. James Bord
53. David Chiu
54. Max Pescatori

All of which pocketed $4,025 for there efforts today. With those eliminations the rail began to grow as in less then an hour another 8 were done, and Jimmy Fricke had knocked out last years Hi/Lo World Champion John Guth and continues his climb back up the leader board. In less then an hour we have gone from 37 down to our final 3 tables and the field hasn’t gotten any easier let me tell you

Table 46:
Seat 1: Josh Arieh
Seat 2: Andrew Brown
Seat 3: Dave Stann
Seat 4: Pat Poels
Seat 5: Jim Pechac
Seat 6: Michael Reed
Seat 7: Lee Grove
Seat 8: Kevin Petersen
Seat 9: Ralph Ruud

Table 47:
Seat 1: Ted Forrest
Seat 2: Ralph Perry
Seat 3: James Richburg
Seat 4: Joe Aronesty
Seat 5: Jose Paz
Seat 7: Kia Hooshmand
Seat 8: Shirley Rosario
Seat 9: Cam Mckinley

Table 48:
Seat 1: Allan Enciso
Seat 2: William Shepard
Seat 3: Soheil Shamseddin
Seat 4: Mallory Smith
Seat 5: Scott Clements
Seat 6: Robert Oxenburg
Seat 7: Ryan Carey
Seat 8: Jimmy Fricke
Seat 9: Michael Sohayegh

The last 2 eliminations have I’m sure made the rest of the field feel better as Kristy Gazes and John Juanda have been eliminated in 28th and 29th respectively along with “Miami” John Cernuto in 31st all of which collected $5,535 for there progress. With the field getting smaller by the hand Josh Arieh found his run at another bracelet come to an end and others hopes at a first had fallen waste side as well. In a rather odd decision tournament staff have decided to stop a 3am with just 18 players and pick up tomorrow and play to a winner, and some how the players managed a democracy decision to take a 20 minute break and then come back play 15 minutes and call it a day, this is a strange decision as typically the call to cut a day short of it’s objective occurs much later then just 12 hours of play roughly 10 levels. So upon there return tomorrow at 3pm the tables will look like so

Table 46:
Seat 1: Michael Sohayegh - 119,000
Seat 2: Ralph Rudd - 184,000
Seat 3: Mallory Smith - 125,000
Seat 4: Andrew Brown - 234,000
Seat 5: Jim Pechac - 2,000
Seat 6: Pat Poels - 49,000
Seat 7: Allen Enciso - 182,000
Seat 8: Lee Grove - 132,000
Seat 9: Kia Hooshmand - 55,000*

Table 47:
Seat 1: Scott Clements - 228,000
Seat 2: Jimmy Fricke - 33,000
Seat 3: Joe Aronesty - 72,000
Seat 4: Ralph Perry - 160,000
Seat 5: Ted Forrest - 204,000
Seat 6: James Richburg - 66,000
Seat 7: Jose Paz - 86,000
Seat 8: Michael Reed - 46,000
Seat 9: Soheil Shamseddin - 243,000

And by the end of the Tuesday they will have a winner!

Event #17 $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout Day 1
With a sell-out of 1,000 entrants this will be an exciting tournament; among the notables are Phil Laak who has come close to a win more then once this year. Jennifer Tilly, Knead Medic, David Williams, David Singer, Andy Bloch and Annie Duke just to name a few.

After just under an hour 2 major names have hit the highway with the elimination of Phil Ivey and T.J. Cloutier and shortly after Phil Laak also found himself left wanting as AK couldn’t win the race against Q’s. Carlos Mortensen is also gone as he tried to bluff Mr. FBT’s nut straight. Phil Hellmuth got himself short stacked then walked his fishhooks head first into a pair of Rockets and number 12 will have to wait at least one more day, also done are Kenna James, Scott Freeman, Lee Watkinson, Bill Edler, Chad Brown, Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Madsen, David Singer, and good old Vanessa “all looks not much skills” Rousso. With the immense field shrinking rapidly players are starting to find themselves at shorter and shorter tables as they look to win the table and advance. David Redlin is the first to win his table and move on to the next so called sit and go. Michael Binger walked into a mild cold deck after flopping top and pot pair on a Qh Jd 8h board when the turn came 9h the money got all-in and when the hands were tabled Binger saw his opponent holding not only Q-J for top two but also the J of hearts to add insult to injury and he’s done. More notables now out are Humerto Brenes and Justin Bonomo and Mr. Full Blown Tilt Greg Mueller. After 6 hours of play many tables have been completed and we have yet to see a notable move through as “The Grinder” was just bumped from the event in heads up play. After just over 6 hours of play we are down to one epic heads up battle between Brian Boran and Marco Mills vying for the right to move on. After starting a 2 – 1 chip dog Brian Boran has evened it up at 15k a piece. After nearly 2 hours of heads up play it all came to an abrupt end when Marco Mills bet 3,500 on the river of a 8x 6x 2x 7x Kx board and Brian shoved for 13k Mills called and tabled J’s to beat Brian’s A-6 and we can prep for round 2. All the players still remaining are going to leave with at least $5,596 and have to realize that the next pay raise doesn’t happen until they win this table then it goes up to $7,507.

Round 2 begins with level 9 and 300/600 blinds with 100 ante, and to Minh Nguyen dismay he fought valiantly to win his heads up battle in round 1 only to be out within minutes of the start of round 2 at least he pockets some cash. On a sick sort of Cold deck Chris Clampitt was holding Qd 10d when the flop hit Qc 5d 3d and he couldn’t catch anyone of the 14 outs he needed to best Alexander Veldhuis’ pocket Kings and he left in 11th or 100th place or somewhere in between whatever suits you’re fancy. As the minutes tick into hours the pace of play has slowed a little as players can see the final table on the horizon as some tables get shorter and shorter. It took nearly 3 hours but the first player has reached the final table when Sergey Rybachenko won his table and is now guaranteed a little better pay day. Khalid Hameed stuck-in 32k preflop with 8-6s and was snap called by Matt Giannetti’s Ah Ac but when the flop peeled of a 10d 9h 7d board it was all over save running perfect and A’s hit the muck and Khalid doubles up, however a little while later Giannetti got some revenge as he doubled up off of Khalid he flops top pair and makes top 2 on the river. With 3 tables down to heads up the end is in sight for many more players. After a long 4 handed battle Giannetti was able to dispel the remaining 3 players at his table with in a couple hands and is now on to the final 10.With 15 hours in the books we still have multiply tables playing and at least one player looks to be going “crazy” as for no particular reason he started clapping hysterically on his table. Well after just under 19 hours of play we have our final 10 as Travis Roseberry couldn’t turn an earlier double up with a straight flush into an eventual win when he decided to slow play Ah Jd, and when the flop came out 4h Jh 2h it took seconds for all the chips to hit the middle and Roseberry saw that his opponent Kyle Bowker was holding Js 3h and was in very bad shape until the 3s peeled the turn and when a black 8 hit the board on the river it was all said and done. Unfortunately for Travis he would have been better off to be in Minh’s shoes and have been the first done. In just 7 hours these 10 players will return to comprise the final table and will begin with 300k each in chips and should be quite the battle for the little piece of jewelry that can drive a player mad trying to achieve.

Seat 1: Casey Coleman
Seat 2: Matthew Giannetti
Seat 3: Thomas West
Seat 4: Rory Monahan
Seat 5: Kyle Bowker
Seat 6: John Strzemp III
Seat 7: Mike Schwartz
Seat 8: Sergey Rybachenko
Seat 9: Jason Young
Seat 10: Alexander Triner

Event #18 $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Triple Draw W/Re-buys Day 1
This event is regarded as one of the highlight events of every year as the pro’s come out in force and the action is intense. To give you a small taste of the level of competition we will see here today some of the names involved are: Jennifer Harman (Bobby’s Room Reg.), Johnny Chan (Bobby’s Room Reg.), Doyle Brunson (Bobby’s Room Reg.), Allen Cunningham, Erick Lindgren, Scotty Nguyen, Chau Giang (Bobby’s Room Reg.), Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Barry Greenstein and that is just a few of the 85 players involved. To give you an idea it would most likely be very simple just to name of the players you don’t know then the ones you do. In this event with a 5k buy-in every player here is prepared to re-load at least 5 times and with 85 in we’ll probably see around 200 re-buys at least. Phil Ivey re-bought after he paid his first ante and is sitting with 80k in chips from The Bellagio just for re-buys, I will have to assume he was in Bobby’s Room till late last night. As the late arrivals pile in the list of the who’s who of poker stars gets longer with Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Greg Mueller, Chris Ferguson, Todd Brunson (Bobby’s Room Reg.) and the always annoying Tony “G”. After the first level we found our first player eliminated after Chad Brown stood pat on a 10 – 8 low and his opponent drew two cards in which he paired up and elected not to re-buy.

So far we can confirm that Ivey has bought in for 30k in this event and has been the main reason for Todd Brunson’s run up to almost 90k. If this event couldn’t get any deeper in talent it did as Phil Hellmuth, Michael Mizrachi and Gus Hansen all waited till the last available moment to buy-in leaving them with only 1 hour of re-buy time left. In typical poker fashion there is much talk of prop bets one of which involves how long it will take Todd Brunson to eclipse the 300k chip mark at the rate he’s eating up Phil Ivey it seems much sooner then later. In a sick twist of the wicked gods of poker the always willing to gamble Roland De Wolfe was just dealt a Royal Flush in his first 5 cards! How sick can things get! As the official numbers come in for tonight’s event it is confirmed at minimum that Phil Ivey has gotten himself 50k into this event and is believed to actually be more. The confirmed numbers are 85 entrants and 272 re-buys and add-ons, for those of you who have trouble with math that’s 3 per person average! So this measly 5k buy-in is on average 20k per entrant. Fourteen places will be paid with the last receiving $26,025 and first taking in $537,862.

In a very entertaining hand Phil Hellmuth, Howard Lederer, Scottie Nguyen and a unknown all entered a pot and when the dust cleared Phil turned over a 10 – 8 low and after a few seconds the unknown turned over his 9-8 low for a beautiful slow roll (for the record I do not condone a slow roll except against Phil Hellmuth and Tony “G”), and in typical Phil fashion he SNAPPED!! A few hands later he was eliminated. Among the next to go out were Allen Cunningham, Erik Seidel, Scottie Nguyen, Berry Johnston, Jennifer Harman, Patrik Antonius and Greg Raymer. In typical Hero fashion Mizrachi tanked after both he and Carlos Mortensen drew a card and Carlos fired 11k, after a considerable amount of time Mizrachi announced call and Carlos tapped the felt and said great call tabling a pair of 8’s while Mizrachi tabled a pair of 2’s I wonder if these guys forget a pair is bad! In a very entertaining moment Doyle dropped an amazing snap comment on Shawn Sheikhan when he went to go chat up slash annoy another table. After one player made a comment to the effect of go away! Doyle looked up ever so subtly and said “You should keep it down over there Matuso er I mean Sheiky” Shawn’s demeanor immediately changed and he replied “I thought we were cool Doyle?” That’ll be an ESPN moment for sure!

Mortensen was down to all-in blind in the blinds when he was able to make the comeback of the day and after a couple more double ups he now see’s his 700 that was his all-in roughly 30 minutes ago grow to a very healthy 55k. As day 1 comes to a close here we are left with 40 of the original 85 and the youngster that has been all the talk heading into this year’s event Tom “Durrr” Dwan is the chip leader followed by a pack of seasoned vets, who will all return tomorrow at 3pm to finalize the last 9.

Tom Dwan 238,900
Mike Matusow 174,500
Tom Schneider 153,500
Chris Ferguson 149,000
Stephen Wolff 138,900
Yan R Chen 136,700
Doyle Brunson 135,000
David Benyamine 132,200
Michael Binger 131,300
Phil Ivey 122,300

And bear in mind Phil Ivey would need to at minimum finish 7th to make a profit and if were correct in our assumption that he did actually buy-in for more then 50k he would really need to finish 6th, but none the less he is in 10th place as we head to day 2.

For everyone at www.poker-prop.net thanks for taking the time to read and may your draw to the nuts not send you to the felt!

By Staypuff