Bonomo vs Radoja and Sulsky vs Nguyen in Semifinals
Another exciting day of heads up no-limit hold'em is in the books here in the Amazon room at the 2013 World Series of Poker. To begin the day, 32 players showed up looking to play and win three matches in order to final themselves seated in the illustrious semifinals of this unique event. In the end, though, the four to rise to the top included Justin Bonomo who will be taking on Mark Radoja in the semifinals and Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky who will battle with Don Nguyen.
Players sat down today needing to only win one more match in order to catch. Unfortunately for half of the field, that means that they would be leaving play empty handed. This exit without money happened to several notable players including Jason Mercier, AP Phahurat, Brock Parker, Ali Eslami, Justin Smith, Keven Stammen, Sam Trickett, and Sam Stein.
Following the first severing of the field, sixteen players returned for their second match of the day. Each player here was guaranteed a payday of at least $26,237 and that was all the likes of Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Melanie Weisner, Craig Bergeron, Bryan Pellegrino, Davidi Kitai, Warwick Mirzikinian, and Alexander Venovski. The final player eliminated during this round was Phil Galfond, who was engaged in the longest heads up battle of the round with online legend Sulsky. After several double ups for both players, Galfond finally got it all in before the flop holding 
against Sulsky's 
. Neither player connected on the board and Sulsky's king-high punched his ticket to the round of 8.
In the final round, Bonomo made quick work of Russell Rosenblum and Nguyen did the same to Sean Winter. Randy Lew was also unable to get on the winning side of hands and he eventually fell to fellow online-grinder Sulsky. The final match was between Phil Hellmuth and eventual winner Radoja. The rail grew a few spectators deep as Hellmuth's colorful table talk and demeanor grew more and more bombastic. Radoja continuously applied pressure against Hellmuth, showing several bluffs along the way. In the end, Radoja shipped all in with 
and Hellmuth called off his tournament life with 
. Radoja held and he locked up the final seat in the semifinals, defeating the 13-time WSOP bracelet winner in the process.
Semifinals
| Player | vs. | Player |
|---|---|---|
| Ben Sulsky | - | Don Nguyen |
| Mark Radoja | - | Justin Bonomo |
Play will resume for the semifinals at 2:00 PM PST on Sunday and we will play down until the newest bracelet winner is crowned. Be sure to stay tuned to all of the live updates here on PokerNews as this exciting event reaches its conclusion!