Today marked the seventh day of the 2008 WSOP, with six tournaments being played simultaneously. We’ve already covered Michael Banducci winning event 5 and Thang Luu winning Event 6 so this report will contain recaps of the other four tournaments that were played today. These tournaments being covered are a pair that played day two today and a pair that got kicked off, we’ll cover them each separately in this article.

Event #7 $2,000 buy-in NL Holdem Day 2

Today 152 of the event’s original 1,592 entrants returned to the Rio to play until 9 players remained. The days big story was Theo Tran who came into the day with a big chip lead and had a great chance to make another 2008 WSOP final table, he finished 4th in Event 2 which was won by Grant Hinkle. The days sub story was the “Tran Show” as two other players with the sir name Tran where atop the events leader board at the start of the day, the others being poker superstar JC Tran and Jimmy Tran (real name: Thong Tran). All 3 Trans had solid outings today, although only two of them would survive the day.

Leif Force and Aaron Kanter were noteworthy players eliminated early, other big names faired well today. The top finishing woman in the field was political activist and WPT Ladies champion Nancy Todd Tyner, she finished in 24th place receiving $14,487.

Dustin “Neverwin” Woolf had a great day that would have been better if the board did not four flush on the river giving Chris Bjorin’s pocket tens a winning flush. This hand sent Woolf to the rail in 15th place good for a $26,076.

It’s been 30 years since we’ve seen a Triple Crown winner in horse racing, but it’s been exactly never since we had a Triple Tran final table, making it a much more historical event. We were all so close but Jimmy Tran would call his last 250K chips with K9 and find himself with only one live card when Matt Keikoan tabled pocket nines. This hand resulted in Jimmy Tran being eliminated in 12th place receiving $33,320.

It would be Manny Minaya who would need to settle for 10th place and $33,320 after he had the absolutely sick misfortune of watching his pocket kings go down to Theo Trans big slick, they were all in preflop and an ace appeared on the flop.

Here are the chip counts heading into the final table:

Theo Tran – 1,884,000
Mihai Manole -1,020,000
Matt Keikoan – 1,011,000
Shannon Shorr – 627,000
Carter Gill – 652,000 – aka devinr12 on PokerStars
Mike Lisanti – 358,000
Alex Bolotin – 345,000
J.C. Tran – 273,000
Chris Bjorin – 205,000

Event #8 $10,000 buy-in Mixed Games Championship Day 2

The inaugural Event #8 $10,000 buy-in Mixed Game Championship drew some of poker’s biggest names rounding off a field of 192 entrants. Today 89 of the day one survivors returned to the Rio to play down till a final table was determined. The final table would include just eight was this mixed event rotated games including 2-7 Triple Draw, Limit Holdem, Omaha/8, Razz, 7 Card Stud/8, NLHE, and PLO, and several of those games are not suitable for nine handed play.

With many of the events entrants being the regular highest stake mixed game players in the regular Bellagio game, it was expected this would be a long night, which ended up being the case as it took till after 5AM for the final table to be determined. Along the way big names such as Tony G, David Sklanski, Barry Greenstein, David Grey, Greg Raymer, Phil Ivey, Katja Thater, Chau Giang, Mark Vos, and Ralph Perry would be eliminated outside the money/

Noteworthy pros eliminated close to the money bubble included: Mike Sexton, Marcel Luske, Vanessa Rousso (27th) and Eric Froehlich (26th).

The bubble broke on this monster Stud/8 hand.

William McMahan had the bring-in, Eli Elezra completed, Doyle Brunson called, Mihn Ly raised, and all three players called. On forth street it was capped and everyone stayed in the hand. On fifth Elezra bet, Brunson raised and Mihn Ly moved all in, McMahon folded and everyone else called. On sixth Elezra bet and Brunson called. On seventh Elezra bet and Brunson folded.

The hands:
Eli Elezra: Qh 5h 2h | 5d 5c Kd 3c (trip aces at showdown)
Doyle Brunson: X X | 7s Ah 9s Tc | X (folded on river)
Minh Ly: As 3s 5s | Ad 6h Qc Kh (pair of aces on showdown)
William McMahan: X X | 2c Qc Ks (folded on 5th)

Elezra scooped a massive pot sending Mihn Ly the rail as the bubble boy in 25th place.

The following players would cash in the money but not survive the day:

9th David Oppenheim – $45,120
10th Gus Hansen – $45,120
11th Ali Eslami – $36,096
12th Tom Schneider – $36,096
13th Johnny Chan – $27,072
14th Lee Watkinson – $27,072
15th Chris Gentile – $18,048
16th Amnon Filippi – $18,048
17th William McMahan – $16,243
18th Brandon Adams – $16,243
19th Greg “FBT” Mueller – $16,243
20th Adam Friedman – $16,243
21st Doyle Brunson – $16,243
22nd Scott Seiver – $16,243
23rd. Chad Brown- $16,243
24th Nikolay Evdakov – $16,243

and here’s the chip counts heading into tomorrow final table:

Matt Glantz 1,150,000
James Mackey 742,000
Tom “durrr” Dwan 642,000
Mike DeMichele 434,000
Sam Farha 374,500
Anthony Rivera 274,000
Jeff Madsen 149,000
Eli Elezra 76,000

Event #9 $1,500 No Limit Hold’em 6 max

1592 players entered this event and after 10 levels of play only 71 managed to survive the day. The short handed structure of this table saw lots of fast action and rapid eliminations. We’ll cover day two in more details tomorrows and leave you for now with the days top ten chip counts.

Matt Matros 156,600
Rep Porter 137,200
Thomas Fuller 110,200
Peter Marr 104,700
Avery Cardoza 99,300
Zachary Clark 94,000
William Mikolay 87,000
Jonas Danielsson 83,900
Tom Braband 82,700
Dave Zand 82,300

Day two is scheduled for 2PM tomorrow.

Event #10 $2,500 buy-in Omaha/Stud Hi-Lo Mixed

2008 WSOP Event 10 kicked off today with 388 entrants including many of poker’s biggest names. Cards were in the air around 5PM and noteworthy players hitting the rail early included Shannon Elizabeth, Josh Arieh, JohnnyBax, Daniel Negreanu, Tony G, Perry Friedman, Marco Traniello, ESPN’s Norman Chad, Phil Ivey and Chris Ferguson.

There were so many big names in this field it would be extensive to mention them all, but here are some other noteworthy players eliminated mid to late day Barry Greenstein, Mike Matusow, John Juanda, Justin Bonomo, Gavin Griffin, Jennifer Harman, Max “The Italian Pirate” Pescatori, David Sklansky, Chip Jett, and Alex Kravchenko

108 players survived the day with the top 10 in chips heading into tomorrows day two being: Jordan Rich 45,800, Daniel Mowczan 45,200, Farzad Rouhani 44,500, Robert Sherer 41,800, Ming Reslock 40,400, Gary Benson 39,900, Greg Pappas 36,400, Michael Mizrachi 35,600, James Van Alstyne 35,100 and Steve Zolotow 35,000.

Other big names doing well but not in the top ten in chip counts include: Michael Mizrachi, Greg Raymer, Miami John Cernuto, Todd Brunson, and Jeff Lisandro.

We’ll include hand coverage in tomorrows day two report and as always will post a detailed report on the final table.

Play will resume tomorrow at 3PM.