2010 World Series of Poker Day 22: Ivey, Ivey, Ivey!
Phil Ivey had a busy day at the 41st annual World Series of Poker making it to Day 2 of the heads-up championship event, and the final day of Event #33. Mike Ellis and Konstantin Puchkov both won WSOP bracelets, and Erick Lindgren has a shot at his second WSOP bracelet in Event #32.
Event #30: $1,500 No-limit Hold’em
England may not be having the best 2010 World Cup, but they certainly are making up for it at the World Series of Poker. Mike Ellis booked the fourth WSOP bracelet win for the British early Saturday morning, besting a field of almost 2,400 players to win $581,851.
It was a rather long final day of action as 21 players came back all hoping they'd be in Ellis' spot. Even when play got heads-up, Eliis and his opponent, Christopher Gonzales needed almost three hours of play to determine a winner.
The final hand saw Elllis raise from the button, and Gonzales repop it to 500,000. Ellis made the call, and the two saw a J♦7♠6♦ flop. Gonzales led out for 1,255,000, and Ellis eventually made the call leading to the 5♦ hitting on the turn. Gonzales moved all-in, and Ellis quickly made the call revealing the nut flush, holding A♦10♦, which had Gonzales' pocket aces drawing dead.
Read all about how the final table played out in our WSOP live reporting pages.
Event #31: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.
There were three tables of players when the final day of Event #31 began, and players like on "PearlJammer" Turner, Al "Sugar Bear" Barbieri, Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, Johannes Steindl, Allen Kessler, and Chip Jett occupied some of the seats at those tables hoping to get their hands on the WSOP bracelet and quarter-million-dollar first prize. All those names faded away by the time the final card was dealt and relative unknown Konstantin Puchkov posed in front of the cards and chips with his first WSOP bracelet in hand.
It was fast-paced getting from 24 to the final eight players, but play slowed considerably at that point needing six hours to get to heads-up play between Puchkov and Barbieri. Making his second final table of this year's WSOP, Barbieri battled Puchkov tooth and nail for over three hours before finally relenting to the pressure from the Russian.
You can recount the entire final table by checking out our WSOP live reporting pages for this event here.
Event #32: $5,000 No-limit Hold'em Six-max
With 12 players remaining going into Saturday's final day of play, Erick Lindgren sits second in chips with 1,165,000 and is a serious threat to win his second WSOP bracelet. He'll battle it out with chip leader Mark Radola and a final group that includes Men "The Master" Nguyen in another tooth and nail fight for the WSOP gold bracelet and a $667,443 first prize.
A number of big-name poker pros made deep runs in this event, including Christian Harder, Eugene Todd, Matt Brady, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, Tom Marchese, Matt Graham, Ryan D'Angelo, Tony Dunst, and Shannon Shorr, who all made the money.
Play resumes Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. when the remaining players will play down to a winner. Follow all the action live in our WSOP live reporting pages.
Event #33: $2,500 Pot-limit Hold'em/Omaha
It's all about Phil Ivey who is sitting in ninth out of the 14 players remaining going into the final day of Event #33. Ivey bagged just over 200,000 in chips and did it in spectacular fashion running back and forth between three events, one being the $10,000 heads-up championship.
Ivey was close to being eliminated had it not been for a timely double-up late in the day with him holding A♥K♥K♦5♠ all in preflop against Gavin Cochrane's A♠K♣10♠9♥. The 9♣7♥2♠ flop was clean for Ivey, and although the 7♠gave a flush draw to Cochrane, the Q♥ on the river ensured that Ivey would be around a little longer.
Joining Ivey going into Day 3 are chip leader, Jose-Luis Velador , David Chiu, Rob Hollink, Victor Ramdin, Josh Tieman, who has a bracelet this year already, Kevin MacPhee and Burt Boutin.
Follow Phil Ivey on his quest for a WSOP bracelet Saturday afternoon in our WSOP live reporting pages.
Event #34: $1,000 Seniors No-limit Hold’em Championship
A shocking, record-setting 3,142 seniors took to the felt on Friday afternoon at the Rio, and only 450 would survive the day. Noted poker pro Tom Schneider sits as the chip leader holding about 94,000, and he will be joined by Berry Johnston, Lon McEachern, TJ Cloutier, and Sam Simon on Saturday afternoon for Day 2.
Follow all the Day 2 updates in our WSOP live reporting pages.
Event #35: $10,000 Heads-up No-limit Hold'em Championship
A spectacular line-up of players put up the $10,000 to play in one of the most highly anticipated events of the summer. Exactly 256 players waged heads-up poker warfare Friday, and when the day was complete only 64 of them remained.
Phil Ivey was probably the most talked about player of the day as he looked to dispatch his opponents as quickly as possible to ensure that he would be able to get back to the other events he was playing. Ivey needed only two hands to eliminate Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi when he hit an ace on the river to defeat Mizrachi's pocket nines. Ivey's match against Team PokerStars pro Victor Ramdin played at a more "normal" pace as officials allowed them to play during a break from another event that both were still in. The pace didn't seem to matter much, and Ivey moved on to round 3.
Also surviving two matches on Friday were Josh Arieh, Scott Clements, Terrence Chan, Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand Grospellier and Vanessa Rousso, Jonathan Little, Faraz Jaka and Sorel Mizzi.
They are scheduled to play three more rounds of poker on Saturday, and we'll have all the updates in our WSOP live reporting pages.
On Tap
Another $1,000 no-limit hold'em event begins on Saturday at 12 p.m., and at 5 p.m. a $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event gets underway. We'll be covering both from wire to wire right here.
Video of the Day
Who doesn't love Allen "The Chainsaw" Kessler? Lynn Gilmartin caught up with Kessler to discuss his impressive results so far in the 2010 WSOP.
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