Wednesday at the 2008 WSOP was the first double-bracelet day of the series, and the twin takedowns on the day had a distinctly Full Tilt-ish feel. Scoring their first WSOP gold bracelets during the day's action were Full Tilt-sponsored pros Erick Lindgren and David Singer, leading a busy mid-week session as action in six different events took place.
Lindgren's triumph in Event #4, $5,000 Mixed Hold'em was a come-from-behind special, when he reeled in young gun Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo during heads-up play. Lindgren trailed Bonomo by a healthy margin when the two began an hour-long showdown for the win, but Lindgren surged ahead and finally finished off Bonomo, who was also looking for his first bracelet. Lindgren's win was worth $374,505, while Bonomo settled for $230,259 as the runner-up.
Singer's win in Event #3, $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em, also involved a comeback. Singer started the day as the second shortest stack, but was able to pull into contention early. Falling by the wayside as Singer surged to the win were early leaders Joe Tehan and Jacobo Fernandez, who started the day in second and finished the same way, for $136,643. Singer, with the win, collected $214,131.
Another pair of events played down to final tables on Thursday. Event #5, the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em w/ Rebuys tourney, saw start-of-day leader Phil Ivey crash completely out of the event early in the day's wild action. When the chips were finally bagged at night's end, Michael Banducci had moved to the top, with Alan Jaffray in a comfortable second spot.
A marathon second day of nearly 13-1/2 hours occurred in Event #6, $1,500 Omaha Hi/Low Split. 205 players remained at the start of the day's play, and final-table-bubble aggression by leader Thang Luu allowed him to widen the gap over several challengers entering today's final. Luu's closest chasers are Greg Jamison, Chris Falconer and Scott Clements.
The second-largest field of the Series so far this year showed up for the noon start of Event #7, $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em. The initial field of 1,593 played all the way down to 152 players on Wednesday, just inside the money bubble. There was a distinctly "Tran" theme to the overnight top ten; Theo Tran led the way with 145,800, and Thng Tran and JC Tran were also in the first day's top eight.
The 5:00 starter was a heavy-hitters special. Event #8, $10,000 Mixed Games, features a rotating format of eight different poker variants and drew what will likely be one of the most star-packed fields of the entire Series. 2007 WSOP Player of the Year Tom Schneider got the best of the first day's action, in which slightly more than half of the initial 192-player field was eliminated.
Thursday brings two more events into action. At noon, Event #9, $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed begins, which is again expected to draw a large field. 5pm brings the start of another "specialty" tourney in Event #10, Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better, which features equal portions of the two split-pot games.
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