Event 8 - $10,000 World Championship Mixed Event Day 3 | 2008 World Series of Poker

06-06-2008 16:04 UTC-7

Final Table Bios: Seat 7, Anthony Rivera (274,000)

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Known as "tongni1" online, this is only the second year 22-year old professional poker player Anthony Rivera has participated in the World Series of Poker and he's already off to an auspicious start at this stacked final table. Primarily a cash-game player, Rivera's previous tournament cashes have come at the WSOP Circuit in Atlantic City and in the 2006 Party Poker Million, where he cashed in 40th place for $19,000. He lives in Henderson, NV.

Tags: Anthony Rivera

06-06-2008 16:03 UTC-7

Final Table Bios: Seat 6, Eli Elezra (76,000)

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Eli Elezra comes into play today as the short stack, but he's already a winner, having collected a $100,000 prop bet for making the final table. Originally from Jerusalem, Elezra is a regular in the Bellagio "Big Game," where a similar rotation of games to the one in this event is played. He first came into the public eye when he took down the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown in 2004 for a $1 million payday and won his first WSOP bracelet last summer, after beating Scotty Nguyen heads up to win the $3,000 stud 8-or-better event. Elezra is a frequent player on NBC's "Poker After Dark" as well as GSN's "High Stakes Poker." This is his 14th WSOP cash and his sixth final table.

Tags: Eli Elezra

06-06-2008 16:02 UTC-7

Final Table Bios: Seat 5, Tom Dwan (642,000)

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Originally from Edison, NJ, Tom Dwan is best known by his online name "durrrr." He is a regular in the highest-stakes NLHE and PLO cash games online, where he regularly goes up against the likes of Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and Brian "sbrugby" Townsend. Though only 10 months have passed since his 21st birthday, Dwan has already racked up over $860,000 in live tournament earnings, including a fourth-place finish at the WPT Foxwoods this past November, a second-place finish at the $5,000 NLHE event at the Borgata Winter Open, and a ninth-place finish at the $25,000 buy-in WPT World Championship at Bellagio seven weeks ago. This is Dwan's first WSOP cash and his first final table.

Tags: durrrr Tom Dwan

06-06-2008 16:01 UTC-7

Final Table Bios: Seat 4, Michael DeMichele (434,000)

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22-year old Michael DeMichele started playing poker at age 18 in the $1-$2 NLHE cash games at the Turning Stone casino. From there he moved to online play, where he began multi-tabling limit hold'em and built a bankroll. From there he moved on to play at Foxwoods and Atlantic City, where he learned non-hold'em variants and found great success in the $200-$400 mixed games. In 2006, DeMichele came in third at the U.S. Poker Championships and banked $215,000 for his finish. Though he considers himself a live cash-game player, DeMichele cashed twice at last year's WSOP, in the $2,500 H.O.R.S.E. and the $3,000 stud 8-or-better. This is his first WSOP final table.

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06-06-2008 16:01 UTC-7

Final Table Bios: Seat 3, Sam Farha (374,500)

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With his iconic shades, flashy silk shirts and his signature unlit cigarette often hanging from his mouth, Sam Farha is a high-stakes cash game legend who burst into the public eye when he finished second to Chris Moneymaker in the 2003 WSOP Main Event. Farha won his second WSOP bracelet three years later, when he beat Phil Ivey heads up to take down the $5,000 Omaha hi-lo World Championship and $400,000. Farha was also a regular on the GSN television series "High Stakes Poker," where he won one of the show's largest pots ever when his pocket kings flopped a set against Barry Greenstein's pocket aces, earning him nearly $362,000 from a single hand. Farha plays a lighter tournament schedule than most of his contemporaries, preferring to flex his muscles in nosebleed-stakes pot-limit Omaha cash games. This is his sixth WSOP cash and his fifth final table.

Tags: Sam Farha

06-06-2008 16:00 UTC-7

Final Table Bios: Seat 2, Matt Glantz (1,115,000)

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Matt Glantz is a professional poker player from Lafayette Hill, PA. A frequent face at Atlantic City tournaments, Glantz made the final table of last fall's U.S. Poker Championships, where he finished third and banked over $150,000. This is Glantz's sixth WSOP cash and his second final table, the first coming in 2005, where he finished runner-up to Andrew Boyer in the $3,000 NLHE event.

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06-06-2008 16:00 UTC-7

Final Table Bios: Seat 1, James Mackey (742,000)

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Before deciding to play poker full-time, James Mackey was a pre-med student at the University of Missouri. Widely known online as "mig.com," last year, Mackey captured his first WSOP bracelet in the $5,000 NLHE event, where he made quick work of a final table that lasted only 2 1/2 hours and included Michael Binger, Nick Schulman, and Michael Gracz. He also took down the $1,050 buy-in WCOOP event on Poker Stars last September for over $580,000. Only 22 years old, Mackey's live career earnings are already closing in on the $1 million mark.

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06-06-2008 05:26 UTC-7

Friday's Final Table Set

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Matt Glantz holds a sizable lead beginning the final of Event #8

After a most-of-the-night battle that concluded when David Oppenheim was bounced on the final-table bubble, the eight players who will return for this afternoon's deciding session were set. Matt Glantz leads the way at 1,115,000 in chips. Here's how the seating assignments, home towns and chip counts appear:

Seat 1: James Mackey (Columbia, Missouri) 742,000
Seat 2: Matt Glantz (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 1,150,000
Seat 3: Sam Farha (Houston, Texas) 374,500
Seat 4: Mike DeMichele (Las Vegas, Nevada) 434,000
Seat 5: Tom Dwan (Edison, New Jersey) 642,000
Seat 6: Eli Elezra (Henderson, Nevada) 76,000
Seat 7: Anthony Rivera (Henderson, Nevada) 274,000
Seat 8: Jeff Madsen (Los Angeles, California) 149,000

The final table gets underway at 4:00 PM PDT. Check in here at PokerNews for the latest live updates.

Tags: Matt Glantz