June 14 marked the sixteenth consecutive day of action at the 2008 World Series of Poker. Today we saw history made as Blair Hinkle won a bracelet ten days after his brother had done the same. This was the first time in history that two siblings won a bracelet in the same series and the only other pairs of siblings to each have WSOP bracelets are Puggy Pearson / J.C. Pearson and Annie Duke / Howard Lederer, their bracelet victories came in separate years. You can read about Blair Hinkle’s victory in our Event 23 Final Table Recap.

We also saw Max “The Italian Pirate” Pescatori capture his second bracelet today which you can read about in our Event 24 Final Table Recap.

The rest of this report covers the other four tournaments which ran today.

Event #25 $10,000 Buy-in Heads up World Championship NLHE Day 2

Today saw 32 players who had each won three consecutive heads up matches yesterday return with hopes of surviving three more in order to make tomorrows final four. Each of these players are all already in the money and are now vying to move up with their eyes set on the $539,056 top place prize money.

Round 4 Recap – Field of 32

Each player eliminated in this round received $21,657 while the winners punched a seat in the sweet sixteen with a guaranteed $36,096 payday. The first player to punch her ticket was last year’s third place winner Vanessa Selbst .She made short work of her opponent Cliff Cantor. Selbst had pocket aces and her opponent A5. The money went all in on the turn with the board showing 2-5-4-9, the river was a king and Selbst moved on.

The day’s next elimination also involved pocket aces, but this time the person holding them was the one to hit the rail. On a board of Q-7-6, David Stern checked, David Williams bet 5,700, Stern raised to 16K and Williams pushed all in. Stern saw the bad news when he saw David Williams turn over top two which had cracked his pocket aces. The turn and river provided no bail out and Stern headed to the rail, while Team Bodog Poker star David Williams advanced to the round of sixteen.

Andy Black was eliminated after he tossed his short stack in with JT and Michael McNeil called with A6 suited and made a flush. We’d then saw:

Alec Torelli defeat Brian Roberts
Lyle Berman defeat David Podgurski
Robert Mizrachi defeat Jean-Claude Moussa.
Brandon Adams defeat Rosenkrantz.
Emil Patel defeat Michael Banducci
Roman Paradiso defeat Sam Farha
John Patgorski defeat Thomas Lutz
Gavin Griffin defeat Alexander Kostritsyn
Jonathan Jaffe defeatAlex Jacob
Scott Montgomery defeat. Isaac Haxton
Jonas Entin defeat. Evan Sofer

At this point there were just two matches still being played, Matt Giannetti vs. Michael Mizrachi and Kenny Tran vs. Erick Lindgren.

Kenny Tran eventually pulled a come from behind win to take down Lindgren and he would later acknowledge Lindgren to be the toughest opponents he faced. The deciding, but not final and of this match saw Kenny Tran put all his tournament life on the line with an open ended straight and then get there on the turn. The next hand Lindgren through his remaining chips in with a gutshot straight and two over cards and lost to Tran’s flopped top two pair.

Michael Mizrachi was the final player to punch his sweet sixteen ticket. On the final hand he held AK and got his opponent Matt Giannetti to commit all his chips with A6. The board ran safe for Mizarchi and he moved on while Giannetti collected $21,657 for his round four finish.

Round 5 Recap – Field of 16

Players eliminated during this round received $36,096, while those victorious locked in a minimum payday of $54,144 while advancing to the elite 8. The big story here was that if both Michael Mizrachi and Robert Mizrachi won their round 5 matches they would find themselves seated together in round six. The rounds first match was over when Alec Torelli moved past Scott Montgomery and then Robert Mizrachi secured his position in the elite eight with the potential to face his brother when he moved past Jonas Entin.

Brandon Adams secured his seat in the elite eight by defeating DeucesCracked poker coach Emil Patel. The elimination hand saw Patel open for a min-raise, and Adams call. When the flop came 3d 4d 7s both players checked, but on a turn of 7s Adams checked, Patel bet 12K and Adam check-raised to 32K. Patel called and the river came 5s, Brandon lead for 50K, Patel came over the top all in and Brandon called. At showdown Adams showed 86 for the nut straight while Patel showed just a six for the second nut straight.

The chance of a Mizrachi vs. Mizrachi round six once looked promising when Michael Mizrachi had a 2.5 to 1 chip lead but over ten minutes time Selbst came back to regain the chip lead. Then with their chip counts close to even Michael Mizrachi caught a bad beat on the river. On this hand the flop was Qs 3c 6h and Selbst check raised a bet and Mizrachi made the call. The turn was 4s and Selbst shoved in and Mizrachi called with Q5 for top pair and an open ended straight draw. He was way ahead when Selbst tabled 96, but a 9d fell on the river and our hopes at Mizrachi vs. Mizrachi round six match up came to an end as Selbst punched her ticket in the elite eight.

Gavin Griffin was the next to punch his ticket in the elite eight. On the final hand his opponent John Patgorski checked and called bets of 24K and 45K on the flop and turn and the board read Tc Qc Ac 4s. The river came Th and Patgorski checked one more time, Griffin bet enough to put him all in, and Patgorski called. Griffin turned up QT for a full house and apparently Patgorski had not realized he had just called off all his chips as he began counting them. Once he realized he headed to the rail and Griffin awaited the start of the next round.

Next we saw Kenny Tran defeat Roman Paradiso and Jonathan Jaffe defeat Michael McNeil.

The match between David Williams and Lyle Berman was so long that the elite eight round started and ran for 2 hours, before they finished. Four hours into there match David Williams was up by just a single chips. About five and a half hours into the match it was finally over when Williams got all his money in preflop with 5d 6c and Berman flopped a nut flush with Ac 2c. Berman moved on and David Williams hit the rail.

Round 6 Recap – Field of Eight:

Players eliminated during this round received $54,144 while the winners received a seat in tomorrows final four and a minimum payday of $108,288. Vanessa Selbst was the first to punch a ticket in the final four as very quickly Robert Mizrachi found himself short stacked. Every time he bet Selbst raised, every time he raised Selbst re-raised. It did not take long for her to finish him off.

Gavin Griffin looked early as if he was a shoe in for tomorrow’s final four, but he somehow managed to relinquish a ten to one chip lead and ended up hitting the rail while his opponent Jonathan Jaffe advanced. On the final hand Jaffe opened the pot with a 25K raise, Griffin called, the flop came 2h 5c 6s and Jaffe bet 50K, Griffin raised to 125K and Jaffe called. The money went all when the turn Jd fell, Jaffe again lead for 50K and Griffin moved all in. Griffin showed 4c 5s for a pair with a gut shot and Jaffe Js 8h for top pair. The river was 8d giving Jaffe top two and Griffin was eliminated.

Kenny Tran caught a river card to defeated Brandon Adams. They were all in preflop with Tran holding KJ and Adams A9. The board had ran K-A-7-8 before the river was a Jack giving Tran the winning two pair.

The last match of the day between Lyle Berman and Alec Torelli had a similar pace as Berman’s last match against David Williams. The players did not see many flops and chatted quite a bit about non poker topics such as gold coins. It became even more similar when after four hours they were both even in chips. After four and a half hours it was finally over when a short stacked Berman tossed in his remaining chips with Qc 6c and failed to make a pair.

Here are tomorrow’s final four match ups:
Vanessa Selbst vs. Alec Torelli
Kenny Tran vs. Jonathan Jaffe

The two winners will play tomorrow night in a best two out of three match to decide the championship.

Event #26 $1,500 buy-in Razz tournament Day 2

The 104 remaining players returned to the Rio today for day two of the $1500 Razz event. Today was saw the money bubble burst once 48 players remained, and then we saw play continue until tomorrows final table of eight was reached.

The day started with former member of the crew Brett ‘gank’ Jungblut hitting the rail early, followed by father of the year Sam Grizzle doubling up a player, Andy Bloch winning a big pot and then the elimination of Cyndy Violette and Dewey Tomko who were both wearing DoylesRoom logos.

Still early in the day 2007 player of the year Tom Schneider made the second nuts (6-4-3-2-A) to win a large pot against Shawn Sheikhan. Later Schneider picked up another big pot to take his chip stack up to 66K when he made 6-5-4-3-2 against Frank Cremen who showed a board of 3-5-7 jack and called on every street.

After about three hours of play the money bubble was in sight and the rising stakes compared to stack sizes did not slow things down much. Eventually Barry Greenstein put everyone in the money when he caught runner-runner-runner to send Dale Pinchot to the rail with no money, finishing in 49th place as the days bubble boy.

Here are the eliminations that occurred before the final table bubble neared:

15 - Martin Stilling - $5,256
16 - John Martin - $5,256
17 - Ben Tang - $4,019
18 - George Shahrezay - $4,019
19 - Andrew Brown - $4,019
20 - Jeff Lisandro - $4,019
21 - Teysseire Oriane - $4,019
22 - Tom Chambers - $4,019
23 - Ali Tabatabai - $4,019
24 - Dennis Furlong - $4,019
25 - Randy Holland - $3,092
26 - Eugene Katchalov - $3,092
27 - Anthony Viganola - $3,092
28 - Stephen Su - $3,092
29 - Jim Wheatley - $3,092
30 - John Turner - $3,092
31 - Andy Smolen - $3,092
32 - Mark Gerencher - $3,092
33 - Team PokerNews Player Dave ‘f-train’ Behr - $2,473
34 - Larry St Jean - $2,473
35 - Trung Ly - $2,473
36 - Simon Hennessey - $2,473
37 - Manelic Minaya - $2,473
38 - Ted Lawson - $2,473
39 - Steven Merrifield - $2,473
40 - Steve Fiorentini - $2,473
41 - Team PokerNews Player Jon Schwartz - $2,288
42 - Peter Brownstein - $2,288
43 - James Seely - $2,288
44 - Allie Prescott - $2,288
45 - Edward Nassif - $2,288
46 - Eric Tomberlin - $2,288
47 - Robert Seinfeld - $2,288
48 - Frank Cremen - $2,288

David Levi finished in fourteenth place worth $7,111 when he was all in on 4th street with XXA4 vs. Brandon Leeds XX4Q, in the end Leeds made a 7-6-5-4-3 low that topped Levi’s 8-7-6-5-4 low. Shortly later Roland Isra was eliminated in 13th receiving the same $7,11 payday.

Tom Schneider was eliminated in 12th place when he ran into Archie “The Greek” Karas nut hand of 5-4-3-2-A. Schneider received $ 10,203 for his finish, as did Stephen Ladowsky who finished in 11th, and perhaps more importantly racked up a few more points for the player of the year race. Schneider has already cashed in five events this year and if he can manage to go deep in a few more he could be a candidate for an unprecedented back-to-back player of the year.

Phillip Luong hit the rail in tenth place receiving $13,294 and with just nine players left, we had one more to go to burst the final table bubble. It would be Chris Viox that would knock out the final table bubble boy when his 9-8-7-6-5 bested Frank Kassela J-9-7-6-3, Kassela collected $13,294 for his ninth place finish.

Here are the chip counts heading into tomorrows final table:

Chris Viox 359,500
Barry Greenstein 243,000
Brandon Leeds 206,500
Joseph Michael 155,000
Archie Karas 113,000
Mark Tenner 108,500
Chris Klodnicki 105,000
Mike Wattel 74,000

Action will resume tomorrow at 3PM local time.

Event #27 $1,500 No Limit Holdem Day 1

The $1500 buy-in NLHE events generally attract a massive sized field and today’s event was no exception, by the time the end of the days tallies were taken we learned that 2706 players entered this event which was up a bit from last year’s 2682 entrants.

A lot of big name players were on hand including defending champion Phil Hellmuth and EPT Champions Tim Vance and Thang Nyugen.

If Scott Seiver, who won a bracelet last night, plans to repeat this year it won’t be in this event as he was one of the earlier noteworthy players eliminated. Other noteworthy players following him to the rail early included Joe Sebok who ran AK with no luck against QQ, EPT Champion Tim Vance, Alex Kravchenko and Beth Shak.

Just before the tournament’s first break Greg ‘fossilman’ Raymer got the last of his chips in with QQ preflop against an opponent’s AT. The door card on the flop was an Ace and Raymer caught no additional held and made yet another early 2008 WSOP exit.

During the third hour of play, just after the first break, we saw several other noteworthy pros hit the rail including Jon ‘pearljammer’ Turner, Jeff Madsen and the event’s defending champion Phil Hellmuth.

There were not many noteworthy players eliminated during level four, so let’s cover some of the noteworthy players that faired well during this period for a change starting with 1996 Main Event champion Huck seed doubled up with AA courtesy of Jonathan “Fatal Error” Aguiar’s pocket jacks. When this hand was complete Seed was up to 7000 chips and Fatal Error was left short stacked. Meanwhile Joe Awada was mounting a decent size stack, having reached 21,000 chips and was behind only Justin Bonomo who had 24,500 chips.

Humberto Brenes managed to ruin some unknown player’s day, and perhaps leave him with scars when in a decent sized pot the board read Qd Th 6d Ks on the turn, Brenes checked, his opponent moved all in and Brenes called tabling JT, while John Doe turned over 66 for a set. The river was a nine giving Brenes the straight and Mr 666 hit the rail.

During Level Five Justin Bonomo chip stacks where on the decline after he doubled up Theo Tran for a couple K and then lost another 4400 when his AK failed to outrace QQ. During the next couple hours there was not much news from noteworthy players. A couple interesting hands between unknown players took place, one being when 55 was all in against two player with Ace high preflop. The flop came 345 and he only needed to dodge a 2 but that’s what he got on the river as his opponents split the pot and he headed to the rail with a cracked set. We also saw and Aces vs King hand where both players set on the flop. With six hours of play in the books, this brought the dinner break.

Shorty after the break we saw Michael Binger, Freddy Deeb, and Devin Porter hit the rail and the list of remaining noteworthy pros in the field had become slim. A few more hours passed with mostly your average pots between unknown players and we then found ourselves with 273 players left of which 270 would be paid.

Kyle Wilson came close to finishing on the bubble when he pushed all in with AA got called by KK and a king appeared on the flop. The once dejected Wilson came back to life when an Ace fell on the river saving him from the fate of becoming the bubble-boy while holding pocket aces. We then saw two players agree to check down their blinds and they were both give a one round penalty for collusion. Eventually Ted Harris and Gusso Alessandro were both out on the same hand, so they will split the $2,770 for 270th place, each receiving $1385.

Rolf “ace speaks” Slotboom has had a habit this Series of going out as soon as the money bubble burst. This time he had his chips in good with AJ vs A9, but the door card was a 9 and after he found no additional help we was eliminated just inside the money for the fourth time this series.

When the day was complete 224 players remained and the top ten chip counts were

Bernard Lee 166,400
Philip Yeh 155,200
Marc Tschirch 145,100
Rainer Meyer 139,600
Kyle Wilson 133,300
Michael Skomac 108,900
Joe Awada 108,200
Albert Iverson 98,500
Mike Abbott 95,600
Terry Quinn 94,200

Play resumes tomorrow at 2PM Pacific and as always we’ll have that day’s report in our next WSOP report.

Event #28 w/ $5,000 Buy-in PL Omaha Day 1

152 players entered the PLO $5K w/ re-buys event which got its start today and it attracted most of the biggest names in poker including Jonny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey, Robert Williamson III and the list goes on and on.

When the re-buy period ended of course few had been eliminated and we later learned that 483 rebuys had been made swelling the total prize pool to over $3 million which would be divided amongst the top eighteen finishers with the bracelet winner receiving $817,781 top place prize money.

Patrick Antonius was the first player to bust after the rebuy period ended; he pushed in with KKXX against Emmanuel Sebag’s A-A-x-x. The defending champion Burt Boutin joined Antonius on the rail shortly later when his 99 connected for a boat on a 9-8-8 flop. and David Benyamine’s trip eights and improved to quads on the turn.

Hoyt Corkins was the next to the rail in a four way pot involving AA2X, KKXX and QQJJ, Corkins mucked so we’re not sure what he had, this hand ended witch Rafi Amit deuce playing as he made trips.

Tom Tom “durrrr” Dwan ran well for a while and managed to eliminated both Phil Ivey and Dario Minieri. Meanwhile, John Juanda eliminated JC Tran when both caught trip nines on a flop of 9-9-5 flop and Juanda’s A-A-9-3 was best.

When the day was complete 54 players remained with the top 10 chip counts being:

Emmanuel Sebag 466,200
David Benyamine 343,700
Erick Lindgren 262,800
Adam Hourani 236,400
John Juanda 213,300
Eli Elezra 205,800
Phil Hellmuth 201,800
Brian Rast 178,200
Daniel Negreanu 176,400
Thomas Wahlroos 171,200

Other noteworthy players still in the hunt are Rafi Amit, Gavin Smith, Chris Ferguson, Robert Williamson III, Josh Arieh, Tony G, Johnny Chan, Alexander Kostritsyn, Joe Hachem, Freddy Deeb, Kirill Gerasimov, Rob Hollink, Mike Sexton and Erik Seidel.