June 11th marked the thirteenth day of action at the 2008 WSOP in Las Vegas. Today we saw Mike “The Mouth” Matusow grab himself a bit of history as he won his third WSOP bracelet, full report here. This report will cover the other four events that ran on June 11. We’ll get started with PLO day two.

Event #19 – $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Day 2
By Jim

Day 2 of event 19 began at 2:00 PM and players were eager to get started for their chance to make it to the final table and earn a piece of the $1,038,834 prize pool. There were 46 players remaining from an original 759 entrants, and when the day started the top 10 chip counts were:

Vanessa Selbst 203,600
Anthony Phillips 133,100
Carter Gill 114,000
Eugene Todd 103,600
Greg Cox 82,900
Phil Reed 82,000
Craig Natte 80,900
Jesper Hougaard 74,800
Rob Hollink 70,600
Jordan Morgan 70,100

And the blinds were 800/1600

The day got off to a fast start and Mike Cook was eliminated in 46th and Daniel Martin eliminated in 45th, before Max “The Italian Pirate” Pescatori even showed up to play. When he arrived 30 minutes late he had already been blinded down to about $10K chips. Jae Kim hit the rail next in a hand that saw suck out resuck out. On this particular hand Kim was all in and in bad shape with Qc Qh 8h 6s against Tony Cousineau’s As Ac 10c 5c. Kim would jump in front when the flop came Kd Qc 3c but would be once again behind with the turn came Jh. A 2h on the river sent Jae Kim home in 44th place worth $3,833.

Eugene Todd, a noteworthy player and amongst our chip leaders, got himself some exercise today as he was also playing Event #21 $5,000 No Limit Holdem. After doubling up there he ran all the way across the room to refocus himself on this event. Around this time Max Pescatori found himself glad he had showed up when he did as he managed to double up through Jordan Morgan when his A-A-x-x held up against Morgan’s Q-T-9-8. A quick update later and we saw Pescatori was up to 35K chips.

Earl Odom was eliminated in 43rd place after he tried drawing to a nut flush while holding four suited cards and his opponent had three of the same suit. His flush draw was live, but he could not catch one of the four outs he needed to make it and collected $3,833 for his day and a ¼ performance.

Will Failla called an all in bet his opponent had made and the cards were exposed before the dealer realized the pot was not large enough for his opponent to go all in as he had more than the pot. Having seen the cards and knowing he was beat on the river, Failla folded saving himself his last 2500 chips. His POTRIPPER advantage afforded him no luck though as he was eliminated on the next hand. Allyn Jaffrey Shulman had been short stacked for a while and appeared content to try and play for the money jump but she had no luck and exited in 41st place receiving $3,833.

Paul “X-22″ Magriel hit the rail in 40th when he ran KK84 into Eugene Todd’s AA55, Todd ended up making 5’s full although a his aces would of done the trick just the same. Vanessa Selbst picked right up where she left off yesterday and with 39 players to go had 275K chips, which was about twice the amount of her nearest competitor.

Stanley Statkiewicz had been running well early but managed to drop down a bit after he doubled up both Chau Giang and Eric Rosenman, those two would be eliminated shortly later but these double ups helped them cash for an extra $1036 by making he next payout tier. Here’s a list of the remaining $3833 cashes and all the $4869 cashes:

$3,833 Payout Tier

39th Marty Smyth
38th Tony Cousineau
37th Mark DeSerrano

$4,869 Payout Tier

36th Eric Rosenman
35th Ward Crane
34th Chau Giang
33rd Jason McIntosh
32nd George Watson
31st Douglas Smith
30th Brian Sharrock
29th Phil Reed
28th Nam Le

Meanwhile why these elimination had occurred:

Pescatori doubled up when his Aces full beat Jeff Brown Kings full.

Thom Schultz got all his money in with a set of fours against Calen McNeil and made quad fours on the turn.

Stanley Statkiewicz scored 32% vs 68% suckout when he got all his chips in with Ks Kc 7c Jd against Jesper Hougaard’s AA Double suited (As 6s Ad Td). The board ended up running 6h 2s Js 9h Jc to give Statkiewicz the double up.

Jesper Hougaard would be eliminated shortly after in 27th place, good for $5,905.

The next major hand to report was a sad one:

On a flop of Qc 5h 9h there was a 3 way all in with Greg Cox having both players covered. When the cards where turned up we saw:

Greg Cox Ah As 6d 9s
Craig Natte 2s 2c 5s 5c
Max Pescatori Qs Qh 10s 8s

Pescatori had a commanding leads with top set, versus bottom set and aces. When the turn card came 4c, giving Natte a flush draw. Pescatori pleaded with the dealer. “Don’t ruin my World Series!” The river did indeed ruin it as it came the 3c sending our favorite poker player Max “The Italian Pirate” Pescatori to the rail in 26th place with only $5,905 for the valiant effort he had show today.

We’d then see then see Ryan Lenaghan, Carter Gill, James Lampropoulos, Randy Holland, Jeff Brown, and Lawrence Cowsar hit the rail in that specific order each also receiving $5,905.

With nineteen players remaining we saw Jodan Mogran and Colin York both all in against each other and Craig Nate who had them both covered. Here are the cards:

Jordan Morgan: Tc Qs 8c Ts
Colin York: Jc Jd 6d 2c
Craig Natte: Ah Th 5h 9d

The board ran 5d Kh Qh 9c 7h.

Natre made the nut flush on the river sending Full Tilt Poker’s Jodan Morgan out in 19th place worth $5,905 and Colin York out in 18th place worth $7,770.

Todd Barlow and Trai Dang were two other players eliminated in the $7,770 payout tier. We then saw Vanessa Selbst increase he chip lead while sending the last online poker room sponsored player to the rail in 15th. This hand saw Rob Hollink (Full Tilt Poker) get all his money in on a flop of 9d 6c 2c while holding Jd Jh Tc Kc for an overpair and flush draw. Selbst turned up Ad Ah 7s Ts for a bigger overpair. Hollink would hit his set on the river Js but the turn had been 8h and that jack happened to give Selbest a winning back doored straight. Rob Hollink collected $10,360 for his 15th place finish.

Greg Cox and Kyle Hegeman would finish 14th and 13th each receiving $10,360 before our most noteworthy player left in the field Chris Bjorn would finish in 12th place denying him a chance at his third WSOP bracelet and yet again another final table. Bjorn went out courtesy of Selbst and he received $ 12,950 as did Calen McNeil who finished in eleventh.

The final table bubble bust on an absolute crazy hand. This hand saw Thom Schultz raise to 20,000 from early position, Vanessa Selbst re-raise to 75,000 from the cut off, and Phillips re-re-raises to 239,000 from the BB. Schultz wanted none of it and quickly folded, but Selbst tanked for a bit asked for a chip count then finally ended up calling. When the flop came 5s-4s-8h Phillips bet all in with his remaining 188,000 and Selbst made the call.

Selbst held – 9h-Jh-8d-Kd
Phillips held – Ah-As-Qd-9d

The turn brought a 10 of diamonds and the river was a 9 of clubs. Selbst had put her a good portion of her chips at risk with a marginal hand for that situation and managed to catch two pair making Phillips the final table bubble boy, he was entirely in shock as he was denied the final table and had to settle for a $12,950 payday. Selbst made an odd comment about how she did not want him to have a big stack and position on her at the final table tomorrow so she called. Wonder if the results were different, and she more of less had donked off her tournament on this hand, would she have said the same thing?

Anyways, Selbst will head to tomorrows final table as a huge favorite with an absolutely massive chip stack. She has more chips then all the other players combined! The final table will resume play at 2:00 PM Thursday and players will be competing for that gold bracelet and the $227,965 first place prize.

Final table and chip counts

Vanessa Selbst 1,047,000
Jamie Pickering 329,000
Stanley Statkiewicz Jr 318,000
Thom Schultz 144,000
Eugene Todd 127,000
Mel Randolph 117,000
Craig Natte 108,000
Jamie Robbins 70,000
Ken Lairson 16,900

Event #20 $2,000 Limit Hold’em Day 2
By Aidan

It was time for Day 2 to begin in the Amazon room in Las Vegas, Nevada. There were 125 survivors from 480 original entrants from Day 1 all competing for the $204,874 first place prize from the $873,600 prize pool.

The day started and players were dropping like flies and close to the money the 11 time world champion Phil Hellmuth busted out. We did not catch the hand, and couldn’t find it reported but, we can assume he did not leave quietly.

Daniel Negreanu made Mike Patrick the bubble boy when Patrick put all his chips in preflop. Patrick held As-Kh and Negreanu had Js-7h. The board ran Qs-Jc-Qh-7c-4c. Negreanu was sitting pretty with 122,000 when this hand was complete.

Mike Schneider went down in 33rd place and earned himself $5,241 after he had raised under the gun and received a re-raise from Jeremy Kotler from the small blind, and then tossed his remaining chips in. He showed Jh-9h and Kottler had Ks-Kc. The board was very interesting when it came Jd-4c-5h-7h-Qc, the river could not help Schneider and made his exit.

Finally after a full day of play Daniel Makowsky had to settle for $12,230 payday as he was the final table bubble boy. A few hands previous Makowsky had went all in UTG with his final 15,000 chips and both Hien Tran and Gegory Wohletz called. Makowsky hit a flush and tripled up. He was unable to turn this triple up into any sort of run as four hands later he went all in preflop again, this time against Derek Lerner who held Qc-Jc and Makowsky held Ad-Kd. The board went 4c-2d-5d-5h-Qh. It was the dirty Queen on the river that did him in.

Some noteworthy players not surviving day two include Alex Kravchenko, Shannon Shorr, JC Tran, John Phan, and Phil Hellmuth,

With day two complete David Baker (409,000) has a small chip lead over second place Uguar Marangoz (402.00), who is the manager of the Mirage Poker Room. Daniel Negreanu enters the final table 3rd in chips and with a victory tomorrow he could accomplish many things. First of all his victory would give PokerStars their first 2008 WSOP bracelet and would give Canada their third. For Daniel Negreanu himself it would be much more meaningful as this would be his fourth career WSOP bracelet and the top place prize money would be enough to make him the fifth player in history to eclipse the $10,000,000 in career tournament winnings milestone.

Day 3 will feature the final table and will resume play at 5:00 PM Thursday.

Final table and chip counts:

David Baker 409,000
Ugur Marangoz 402,000
Daniel Negreanu 308,000
Greg Wohletz 301,000
Richard Li 195,000
Derek Lerner 133,000
Fu Wong 67,000
Hien Tran 58,000
Jeremy Kottler 47,000

Event 21 – $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Day 1
By Aidan

Event 21 – $5,000 No Limit Hold’em kicked off today and has one of the biggest Hold’em prizes pools so far at $3,419,553. 732 entrants are competing for all vying for the top place prize of $755,891 which will issue a bracelet.

Recognizable players that entered this event include: Phil Laak, Scott Freeman, Jonathan Little, and Roy Winston, Allen Cunningham, Lee Watkinson, T.J. Cloutier, Layne Flack, Erik Seidel, Dutch Boyd, Andy Black, and Jennifer Tilly. A late entrants included Johnny Chan, Nenad Medic, and Vanessa Rousso.

Eli Elezra found himself eliminating both Andy Black and Hevad Khan when hemade a daring call. Black was all in preflop with a short stack and Khan and Elezra called and were playing for a side pot. When the flop cmae 5s-6c-10c Elezra checked and Khan moved all in for his last 4,750 in chips. Elezra went into the tank and ended up making the call with 5d-8h and was up against Khan’s Ah-9d and Blacks Ks-9c. Elezra’s hand held up and both players were sent home.

Mark Newhouse sent poker babe Liz Lieu to the rail when they both got their money all in on a flop of 9s-2h-10c and Lieu help 10d 8d and Newhouse held pocket queens. The turn and river brought no help and Lieu was on the rail early.

Sorel Mizzi was the next player who decided to run T-8 against an overpaid, this time Jacks, and like Liz Lieu he had no luck doing so and hit the rail.

After moving all in preflop with Jd-9d, Erica Schoenberg received a call from a player holding Qh-10h. The flop hit Schoenberg, but the turn hit a 10 of clubs and she was bust. Antonio Esfandiari found himself joining the rail with Schoenberg when he moved in with his short stack preflop with A-J and was called by two players both holding AK. Esfandiari failed to hit a jack or muster up anything else that would beat AK and was eliminated.

Day 1 of the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em wrapped up with Alex Melnikow with a decent chip lead over second place Sam El Sayed. At the end of the day Melnikow finished with 248,800 and Sayed has 215,800. There are 121 players left from an initial 732 entrants and many big names are still in the field which include: Kathy Liebert, Alex Jacob Jonathan Little, Howard Lederer and Eli Elezra. Day 2 will resume at 2:00 PM Thursday and the top 72 will be paid.

The top 10 players after day 1:

Alex Melnikow 248,800
Sam El Sayed 215,800
Jared Okun 170,000
Thanhdat Tran 164,700
Hasan Habib 140,200
Keith Tilston 135,400
David Seidman 119,800
Rajesh Vohra 117,700
Mark Radoja 117,700
Scott Freeman 115,800

Event 22 – $3,000 HORSE Day 1
By Aidan

This is the first HORSE event of the 2008 World Series of Poker and it kicked off at 5:00 PM in the Amazon Room. 414 players are competing for the first place prize of $298,253 from the $1,142,640 total event prize pool.

The event is played different then it has in the past, in previous HORSE events, players would play one of the games for the entire round. This year they are playing 8 hands of each game and then switching to the next game. This provides a much better balance of games played and just makes more sense in general.

The high profile players that entered the event include: Kenna James, David Williams, Phil Gordon, Andy Bloch, Greg Raymer, Berry Johnston, Allen Kessler, Mike Sexton and many more.

Daniel Negreanu was in two events at the same time and decided to put his full attention on the $2,000 Limit Hold’em event and let his HORSE stack to be blinded off. His stack/seat was able to hang until all the way past the 5th round of blinds, a very impressive outing for a chair.

Victor Ramdin and Phil Gordon were the last two big names to be eliminated on the day. Ramdin was playing a short stack and put all his chips in preflop with Ks-Qs and found an opponent who called with As-Ac. Ramdin failed to catch up and was eliminated. Gordon received the same treatment and was eliminated by James Van Alstyne.

Day 1 wrapped up with Alexander Jung having a small chip lead over second place Chris Gentile. Right now Jung is sitting with just over 54,000. There are 131 players left from an initial 414 entrants and many big names are still in the field which include: Greg Raymer, Todd Brunson, Andy Bloch, Jennifer Harman, Marcel Luske, Mike Sexton and Phil Ivey. Day 2 will resume at 3:00 Thursday.

The top 10 players after day 1:

Alexander Jung 54,300
Chris Gentile 50,300
Shannon Elizabeth 44,200
James Mackey 42,900
Todd Brunson 41,700
Marc Goodwin 41,500
Kevin Saul 36,800
Rostislav Tsodikov 36,000
James van Alstyne 36,000
Linda Drucker 36,000

Play resumes tomorrow at 3PM

This concludes our June 11, 2008 WSOP report. PokerNews WSOP was a source for many of the chip counts uses in this report.