June 12, marked the fourteenth day of action at the 39th Annual World Series of Poker is Las Vegas. The year of the pro continued as Daniel Negreanu scored his fourth career WSOP bracelet (details) today and Vanessa Selbst also became the first woman to win a 2008 WSOP bracelet (details) in an open event. This report will cover the other four events which ran today.

Event #21 $5,000 Buy-in No Limit Texas Holdem Day 2

732 players entered 2008 WSOP Event #21 which is a $5,000 buy-in No Limit Texas Holdem tournament. Today the 121 survivors who survived day one returned to the Rio where we played down till a final table was determined. Along the way the money bubble burst and the top 72nd place and above was paid at least $9,619. These players are all vying for a WSOP bracelet and the $755,891 top place prize money.

When the day the blinds were 800/1600 with a 200 chip ante (Level 11) and the top ten chip counts were:

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

1996 Main Event winner Huck Seed was the first noteworthy player eliminated on day two after his A6 ran into the pocket jacks of Thanhdat Tran. Other players eliminated quickly on day two included Henry Strasser, Michael Watson, Pier Ruscalla, Dmitri Nobles, Dustin “Neverwin” Woolf and Thomas Hover.

A big pot occurred between two known pros when after an early-position player raised to 4600, Layne Flack moved all in for 39K and Michael Mizrachi came over the top all in as well. It ended up being between these two players as everyone else including the original raiser had bailed out. Mizrachi turned over pockets kings which were ahead of Laak’s AQ. The flop brought a queen, but unable to improve further Laak hit the rail.

Meanwhile the “I endorse shady poker rooms” curse continued to haunt Eric Lynch as he busted out of yet another tournament out of the money. Nathan Mullen, Farzad Bonyadi, C.K. Hua, Brian Rast and Greg “FBT” Mueller also made their ways to the rail before the tournament advanced to level 12.

Early in level 12 with 1K/2K blinds with a 300 chip ante we saw a big three way all in with Gavin Smith holding KJ, Jacques Zaicik holding AJ and Amit Makhija holding pocket Kings. Gavin was pumped when he caught a flop of 4s- 5d Ks, he would be defeated when the dealer pealed a Qc for the turn and the river came 4d.

Thomas Jean-Narc, Connor Allisen, Amit Makhija, Ralph Perry and Eric Hicks were the next players eliminated during Level 12. On the last hand of Level 12 the following hand occurred Jorryt van Hoof raised to 5,500 UTG and Ben Sprengers, Joe Monro and Howard Lederer all called. The flop came Ks Qs 8d and Lederer bet his last 37K chips all in. it was folded back to Monro called with 7s 9s to Lederer’s Kd 10d. The river gave Mnoro more outs when it came 7h, but he’d win the pot with a rivered flush when the Js fell on the last card. Howard Lederer was the final elimination of Level 12.

Level 13 saw the blinds raised up to 1200/2400 with still a 300 chip ante. Ian Gulam, Dustin Pattinson, and John Conkright were amongst the only few players eliminated during this level. When we moved on to Level 14, 1500/3000 blinds with 400 chip ante, we were on the money bubble so the tournament moved to hand for hand.

The money bubble would burst when Aaron Coulthard raised to 8K preflop with Ah Qd and Humberto Kim moved all in with Ad Ks, The flop came King low low leaving Kim in excellent shape, but he’d experience a sick twist of fate when the turn and river ran J-10 giving Coulthard a winning straight, also making Humberto Kim the bubble boy.

Once level 15 was complete we were down to 42 players.
Audrey Gouyer, David Brannan, Sarah Bilney, John Sexton, Michiel Brummelhuis, David Singer, Brent Roberts, James Lee, and Steve Gross had finished the $10,650 payout tier. Joshua Ladines, Wendell Teets, Steve Brecher, John Tabatabai, David L McCollum, Claudio Pagano, Jeremiah Vinsant, Travis Pearson and Tony Dunsteach received $11,681 while Alex Jacob, John Hart, and Keith Tilston received $12,712 for their day two performances.

Level 16 brought with it blinds of 6000/12000 with a 500 chip antr and during this level Manelic Minaya, Alex Melnikow, Jerrod Ankenman, Anna Wroblewski, Danny Smith and Hasan Habib were eliminated recieving $12,712 and Ryan Rapaski, Alex Kamberis, Blake Cahail, Patryk Hildebranski, Thanhdat Tran, Jorryt Van Hoof, Noah Boeken ad Eric Liu were eliminated for a $16,147 payday.

The eliminations of Mark Radoja and John Murphy, each receiving $19,583 saw us down to just 24 players, and the next to go was Kathy Liebert when she unsuccessfully raced AT against Joe Monro’s pocket sixes. Aaron Coulthard found himself short stacked after he called an all in bet made by Humberto Brenes who had flopped a set of deuces. With only 26K chips remaining, Coulthard tossed them in the next hand with pocket fours and was outraced by Kathy Woo’s 8d 6d. Following Chris McCormack, Quoc Vu, Eli Elezra and Cody Slaubaugh also being eliminated we were down to 18 players and our final two tables.

The next eliminations included Kathy Woo, Jared Okun, Eric Baldwin each receiving $25,767 and Joe Monro receiving $34,357 before we’d see PokerStars last player Humberto Brenes eliminated in 4th when his chip leader Scott Seiver’s KQ out flopped his Ac 3c. Play slowed for a while and after 40 minutes or so we’d reach the final table bubble after Rayan Nathan, Jon Van Fleet and Michael Mizrachi hit the rail. To note Mizrachi;s beat was a tough one. On this hand he raised UTG to 50K, Scott Seiver reraised to 125K from the SB and Mizrachi called. The flop came 2d 4s 7h, Seiver bet 175K Mizrachi moved all in and Seiver instantly called showing a set of 2’s and Mizrachi turned over pocket tens for the overpair.

Once Mizrachi was eliminated, players redrew seats for a final table of ten of which nine would play tomorrow’s official final table. It took just three more hands to end the day as
Jorge Arias got his pocket queens all in preflop against David Seidman’s A-K. The flop had looked save for Arias when it came 4s 4c Th but he’d become the final table’s bubble boy when the final card rivered Seidman a pair of kings.

Here are the chip counts for tomorrow’s final table which will begin at 2PM Pacific.

Scott Seiver — 2,512,000
Rajesh Vohra — 1,040,000
Jacobo Fernandez — 848,000
Dave Seidman — 653,000
Adam Geyer — 645,000
Ben Sprengers — 441,000
Chuck Sklar — 439,000
Scott Freeman — 423,000
Anders Henriksson — 311,000

Event #22 $3,000 H.O.R.S.E Day 2

133 players of the event’s 414 entrant returned to the Rio today with the intention of playing until the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E final table was determined. It turned out we were only able to get down to eighteen players today so tomorrow 16 days two survivors will play out the final two tables.

Today’s field had once included many of the who is who of poker but we’d see many unknown players chip counts rise while many of poker’s biggest names hit the rail. Early noteworthy eliminations included Mark Vos, Annie Duke, Mike Sexton, Cowboy Kenna James, Greg fossilman Raymer and ever so sexy Vanessa Rousso.

Today our first good laugh came when Australia’s Billy “The Croc” Argyros called collusion on himself. What had happened is on a 20K chip pot Gary Benson folded on the river, leaving himself just 400 chips behind. “Collusion! Floor! He’s clearly dumping chips to me!” cried Argyros as Benson and the table laughed at The Croc’s antics.

At this point there were 75 players left and to give you an idea of how impressive the remaining field was, table 48 had several big names at it featuring Marco Traniello, Jens Voertmann, Max Pescatori, James Mackey, Ted Forrest, Michael Binger and Steve Zolotow with Mike Matusow hanging around the table to chat and show off his third WSOP bracelet.

Michael Binger was seen jogging back and forth across the room as he was playing this event as well as the $2,000 No Limit Holdem event across the room. Meanwhile we’d see more big names eliminated in Max Pescatori Ted Forrest and Michael Gracz, before we’d also see Michael Binger hit the rail perhaps in time to enter the $2500 Pot-Limit Holdem/Omaha event to keep his multi table actions going.

Other names eliminated just outside the money included Mel Judah Mark Goodwin Shannon Elizabeth Erich Kollmann Berry Johnston. With 41 players remaining we were at the money bubble when Leo Fernandez found himself at risk all in against Kevin Saul and Billy Argyros. At show down we saw:

Kevin Saul: 5s 7h ? | w/ board of 6s Jd Kc Ks
Billy Argyros: Ah Ad 4c | w/ board of 8c 10d 9d Js
Leo Fernandez: A 5 Jc | w/ board of 2s 3d 2c Jc

Billy Argyros’ aces where enough to make Leo Fernandez the bubble boy and put the rest of the field in the money.

Finishing in the bottom tier of the money each receiving $5,141 was Claude Marbleu, Jan Sjavik, Gerry Drehobl, Ryan Gentry, Linda Drucker, Dewey Tomko, Mandy Calara and Marco Traniello. They were followed by Brian Eddy, Billy Argyros, Cliff Pappas, Richard Burke, Jack Ward, Josh Woolsey, Andy Ward and James Mackey who received $6,284 each and then Markus Golser, Phil Ivey, Loi Tran, Kevin Saul, Tom Schneider, Alexander Jung, Tad Jurgens and Farzad Rouhani who each revived $7,998.

Tomorrow 16 players will return to decide a champion, here are there names and chip counts:

Marcel Luske 350,000
Jared Davis 322,500
Jennifer Harman 249,500
Doug Ganger 245,500
Hoyt Corkins 220,000
Jens Voertmann 184,500
Blair Rodman 161,500
Steve Zolotow 144,500
Todd Brunson 124,000
Eric Froehlich 118,000
Rostislav Tsodikov 99,000
Paul Zimbler 79,000
Mickey Appleman 57,500
Mallory Smith 49,500
JJ Hazen 43,500
David Levi 36,000

Marcel Luske will start tomorrows play with the chip count and will be looking to give the Dutch their first WSOP bracelet.

Event #23 $2,000 No Limit Holdem Day One

The $2000 buy-in No Limit Holdem Event #23 kicked off today, and while the number of entrants was down a bit from last years 1,619 it was still impressive as 1,344 entered the event creating a $2,446,080 prize pool. The top 99 players will finish in the money with 99th place being worth $4,403 and top place paying $507,563 and of course the converted WSOP bracelet.

Action got started fast and furious as it took just four minutes for the day’s first player to hit the rail (unknown hand). Players continued to drop including Joe Awada who held K2 on a flop of 2 K 8 only to find his opponent was holding K8. Other note worthy level-one exists included Shane Schleger, Mark Seif and Ciao, Giang.

Level two would also see several big name players hit the rail including Thang Nguyen, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Minh Ly, Alexander Kostritsyn, Justin Bonomo, Andy Black and John Juanda.

As level 3 started, the field had been narrowed from 1,344 to 998 players. The next noteworthy players hitting the rail were John Phan, Jeff Madsen and Matt Stout. When level four rolled around the following chip counts were spotted as players fairing well so far:

Barry Greenstein — 10,500
Phil Hellmuth — 9,000
JC Tran — 8,500
Young Phan — 8,500
Men Nguyen — 7,500

Level four brought 100/200 blind with a 25 chip ante and also brought the eliminations of Sunny Chattha and Erica Schoenberg and her boyfriend David Benyamine, and Chris Ferguson.

Mid way through level four Dana Karlson had taken the chip lead with 35,900 but a four way all in hand would see a new chip leader crowned and he took that lead into level five. On this hand Scott Bohlman had pocket queens against TT, Kh Qh and a third hand which was mucced. The board ran 5s 5d 4h 4d 7c giving him the massive pot and the chip lead.

Sorel Mizzi, Tony Cousineau, Noah Schwartz, Alan Smurfit, Clonie Gowan and JC Tran were level five casualties.

Level six saw the blinds increase to 200/400 with a 50 chip ante. We then saw our first rock star eliminated as Godsmack’s Sully Erna hit the rail, but Anthrax’s Scott Ian is still in the field. Next we’d see a very interesting hand between Barry Greenstein and Men The Master Nguyen. On this hand Greenstein raised to 1,200 preflop, Nguyen reraised to 3,200 and Greenstein called. The flop came 4c 3h 2h, Nguyen bet 4,000. Greenstein raised all in for 16,000, and Nguyen insta-called. Expecting to see over pair verses set or pair vs pair the crowd was rather perplexed when we saw Greenstein table Qd 4d and Men Nguyen Td 5h. Obviously a hand that beyond all but the great poker minds, anyways the turn came 9s and the river 3c and Greenstein doubled to 53K while Nguyen chips stack had sunk down to 32K.

We then took a 90 minute dinner break at which time roughly 350 players remained.

As play resumed the tournament was progressed to Level 7 which had 300/600 blinds with a 75 chip ante. Bill Gazes managed to triple up with AK besting AQ and 66. It did not look good for him at first as flopped had come 5 Q J but the river gave him a straight. Men the Master Nguyen also started the level off well as he got his KK in against AQ and picked up a decent pot.

Another noteworthy player fairing well during level 7 was Mike Schwartz who got all his money in with KK against his opponents QQ. The opponent commented “suck out please!” but it was over before the third card hit the flop as K K 2 was placed on the board.

As level 8 rolled around we saw the rare and always entertaining AA vs KK vs QQ vs JJ four way all in. Unluckily for the guy with Aces he saw two of his opponents flop sets when a king and a jack hit the board. In the end the kings held up quadrupling TJ Yurkanin up to 30K chips.

The only noteworthy player eliminated during level eight was Theo Tran who pushed all in with pocket nines which ran into pocket jacks; however another noteworthy player the prince of poker Scotty Nguyen found himself crippled at the end of the level when his pocket kings ran into Stemper’s pocket aces.

At the end of Level 8 Barry Greenstein had captured the chip lead with 73,000 chips.

Level 9 brought with it blinds of 500/1000 with a 100 chip ante and also the eliminations of Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles, Ted Lawson, TJ Cloutier and David Redlin. We when moved on to Level 10 the blinds were 600/1200 and the antes remained the same 100 chips. At this time Dustin Dirksen had taken over the chip lead with 118K chips.

Australia’s Andrew Jeffreys would grab himself the chip lead up to 165K chips when he ran his KK against an unknown opponent’s AK, but Dustin Dirksen would moments later increase his stack to 172K to regain the chip lead.

As the day concluded we saw David ‘geeforce‘Gent, and Scotty Nguyen hit the rail.

Here are the top ten chip counts of the 134 players who will return tomorrow where we’ll see play continue until a final table is determined.

Dustin Dirksen 170,200
Andrew Jeffreys 164,500
Glen Bean 118,400
David Chicotsky 104,000
Matthew Ehrlich 103,400
Nick Niergarth 89,900
Patrick Stemper 86,200
Russell Carson 84,900
Barry Greenstein 82,100
Yves Grenon 78,900

Event #24 $2,500 Pot Limit Holdem / Omaha Day 1

This even attracted 457 entrants creating a $1,049,480 prize pool. The money will start at 45th place worth $5,256 and the eventual winner will receive $246,471 and a WSOP bracelet.

Just after 5PM local time the cards were in the air and we immediately recognized another star studded field including the likes of Erik Seidel, Joe Hachem, Justin Bonomo, Ted Forrest, John Juanda and many others.

The first note worthy player to hit the rail was Josh Arieh when his KK86 fell to an opponent’s AA93 during level one of Omaha. As the event changed over to Holdem we saw David Williams, Victor Ramdin and David “Devilfish” Ulliott hit the rail as well.

Joe Hachem became a short stack early on, but managed to triple up when he got his money all in on the flop against a player with bottom set and another player with a flush draw. When this hand was complete Hachem had 6900 chip.

Around this time Howard Lederer entered the event as a late registration in time to see Mike Sexton double up through Gavin Griffin when his AQ out raced Griffin’s pocket nines, and also to see Scott Clements hit the rail.

Johnny Chan asked for a TV with the Lakers Celtics game to be brought over to him, which seemed like a reasonable request considering they did the same two days ago for Phil Ivey. He was told it was not possible, so I guess for some reason Ivey is the man in Vegas now while Doyle Brunson (who had asked the same for game one) are lower tiered VIPs?

Meanwhile, Vanessa Russo, who we love staring at, found herself back and forth in chips. She got her money all in preflop bad with JJ vs KK, flopped a set only to see her opponent river a set. The next hand she doubled back up when she pushed in with a flush draw and completed it on river.

Ted Lawson turned up his cards after thinking he was all in and the hand continued until he realized that he had been fondling 1000 chips during the hand. This was a strange situation as he had already been eliminated but still had chips. It was ruled he could keep those chips but was sent on a one round penalty.

Once the Celtics Lakers game was over Johnny Chan began focusing on the tournament and managed to win a 3 way all in to grow his chip stack to around 15K. Around this same time Phil Ivey decided to take his seat for the first time. Yes at 5 hours of play he had been blinded down to 3200 chips and was just then taking his seat. He’d win a pot right out of the gate increasing his stack to 4100 courtesy of Ted Forrest, but then would push his chips all in a few hands later and end up heading for the rail, perhaps he had other things to do.

Several noteworthy players were eliminated mid day including David Chiu, Tony G, Annie Duke, Leif Force and John Juanda. During the final two hours of play we also saw Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Katja Thater, Andy Black, and Justin Bonomo hit the rail.

When the day finished 85 players remained and here were the top five chip counts:

Stephen McKinney 92,500
Henning Granstad 68,500
Kyle Kloeckner 65, 000
Jesse McEuen 63,400
Dave Penly 63,300

Noteworthy players still in the field include Max Pescatori 56K, Erik Seidel 50K, Minh Ly 36K, Howard Lederer 32K, Ted Forrest 29K, Joe Hachem 27K, Jim McManus 23K, Sorel Mizzi 22K, Rolf “Ace Speaks” Slotboom 18K and Johnny Chan 15K.

Play resumes tomorrow at 3PM Las Vegas Time.

Source credit: PokerNews Live Reporting – was a source reference for much of this report.