WSOP Daily Update for Monday, July 3rd

July 04, 2006

BJ Nemeth

WSOP Daily Update for Monday, July 3rd 0001

There were three events in action at the World Series of Poker yesterday, headlined by the final table for Event #6 ($2,000 No-Limit Hold'em). Mark Vos defeated Nam Le heads up, earning $803,274 and a coveted WSOP bracelet. (For details on that final table, read Earl Burton's full report)

The other two events are summarized below.

EVENT #7 ($3,000 LIMIT HOLD'EM) - DAY TWO

Event #7 started Sunday with 415 entrants, creating a total prizepool worth more than $1.1 million. The $3,000 buy in was the highest of the WSOP to this point, resulting in the smallest field yet.

With the money bubble bursting late Sunday night, Day Two began with the traditional post-bubble bustouts, with nearly 20% of the field disappearing in the first half hour. But then the pace slowed as players fought for a spot at the final table.

Karlo Lopez started the day with the chip lead at 89,000, and stayed strong, steadily building his stack. He would finish the day with the chip lead again, going into tomorrow's final table with 227,000.

Phil Hellmuth had 55,000 at the start of the day, good for fourth place at the time. Hellmuth was already guaranteed his second WSOP cash, giving him a total of 51, padding his career record. (Men "The Master" Nguyen is on his heels in second place with 49 cashes.)

But Hellmuth has his eye on a bigger record — career WSOP bracelets. In that category, he trails Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson by one.

Hellmuth started strong, reaching the final three tables. But then he had his pocket aces cracked, and it might have tilted him a bit. Ernie Scherer had flopped top pair with J-10, and then rivered a runner-runner straight.

Hellmuth continued battling to the final two tables, but then lost two out of three pots where he held pocket aces or kings in the span of half an hour, and he was eliminated in 13th place. You can expect to see Hellmuth sitting down in Event #9 ($5,000 No-Limit Hold'em) on Tuesday, still seeking that elusive tenth bracelet.

Barry Shulman was the unfortunate tenth-place finisher, missing the final table when he was short stacked and all in with 10-9 against Allan Puzantyan's pocket queens.

Here are the nine final table players and their official chip counts:

Seat 1: Allan Puzantyan - 144,000

Seat 2: Danny Ciaramella - 38,000

Seat 3: Jeffrey Lisandro - 153,000

Seat 4: Karlo Lopez - 227,000

Seat 5: Rich Zhu - 221,000

Seat 6: Larry Thomas - 59,000

Seat 7: Ernie Scherer - 118,000

Seat 8: William Chen - 122,000

Seat 9: Henry Nguyen - 189,000

The final table for Event #7 is scheduled to begin today at 2:00 pm.

EVENT #8 ($2,000 OMAHA HI-LOW SPLIT) - DAY ONE

Event #8 attracted 670 entrants, creating a total prizepool over $1.2 million. This was the first non-hold'em event of the 2006 World Series of Poker, which some critics have called the "World Series of Hold'em." This year, 75% of all WSOP events are hold'em. (That's not even counting the highly anticipated $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, which will switch to strictly no-limit hold'em at the final table.)

Even though hold'em is obviously the most popular game, this event attracted 670 players, which is 255 more than entered Event #7 ($3,000 Limit Hold'em). While this data is a bit skewed by the differing buy ins, is it too much to hope that the second stage of poker's post-television growth will come in the non-hold'em games?

Nothing particularly notable happened on Day One, as the field steadily diminished. The day came to a conclusion when the money bubble burst after midnight. The top 63 spots get paid, but with the new round-for-round bubble format, two extra players were eliminated on the bubble, so the bubble finishers will split $4,878 between them. The 61 players who survived to Day Two are all guaranteed at least $2,439, with a shot at the first prize of $341,426.

Play ended without any big names at the top of the leaderboard, but one of the chip leaders stands out — Russ Salzer in fourth place. At last year's WSOP, Salzer cashed five times for a total of $527,290, including a 29th-place finish in the Main Event. He also finished second to David Chiu in Event #32 ($5,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split).

Here are the top five chip leaders heading to Day Two, along with a few notables who are above the average stack of 21,967:

1. Cong Do - 66,500

2. Alan Mittelman - 53,500

2. Herb Beck - 53,500

4. Russ Salzer - 47,000

5. Niels Roch - 46,000

10. Andy Bloch - 39,000

18. Huckleberry Seed - 32,000

19. Jay Heimowitz - 31,500

22. Shahram "Sean" Sheikhan - 30,500

22. David Levi - 30,500

24. Daniel Negreanu - 27,500