Event #14 of the World Series of Poker featured another world championship with this one being Seven Card Stud.  The buy-in represented the importance of the event as it was $10,000 and 158 people paid up making the prize pool $1,485,200. 

Being the World Championship Seven Card Stud tournament, this contest drew a lot of legendary players and Stud pros.  People such as Scotty Nguyen, Allen Kessler, Mickey Appleman, Archie Karas, and Maureen Faduniak all made sure to be in attendance for this event.

This tourney also enticed many of the versatile poker players as well like Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Jennifer Harman, Doyle Brunson, and Alex Kravchenko.

With all these great and established players in the field, this is why it came as a great surprise when a young Russian by the name of Alexander Kostritsyn ended up as the leader after the first day of play. 

Here’s how things looked heading into day 2:

Place/Player/Chips
1. Alexande Kostritsyn 121,100
2. Barry Mullinax 103,300
3. Michael Fiorito 101,900
4. Chad Brown 89,100
5. Daniel Negreanu 79,700
6. Ralph Perry 76,100
7. Cyndi Violette 70,300
8. Vassilios Lazarou 69,400
9. Thomas Weideman 62,100
10. Eric Brooks 62,100

Day 2 would see a lot of the better players in the world eliminated on the quest to see the Seven Card Stud Championship whittled down to an eight player final table.

Many of the well recognized players like Phil Ivey, Scotty Nguyen, Annie Duke, Greg Raymer, and Shannon Elizabeth wouldn’t last throughout this session.

By the end, the final table was mostly made up of a bunch of unknowns.  Erik Seidel was by far the best known player at the table.

Here’s how it looked heading into the final:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. David Oppenheim 508,000
2. Alexander Kostritsyn 495,000
3. Fu Wong 429,000
4. Minh Ly 424,000
5. Jim Paluszek 413,000
6. Eric Brooks 359,000
7. Erik Seidel 273,000
8. Vassilios Lazarou 259,000

Coming into the final table, Vassilios Lazarou was the short stack and left the quickest as well.  That’s because David Oppenheim would eliminate him not long after the action began.

But Oppenheim, who came into the table with the lead, was the next to go as Kostritsyn got a set of 5’s and David went all-in against them.

Jim Paluszek was the next person to go as Kostritsyn eliminated him too and Kostritsyn continued knocking players out when he sent Erik Seidel back to the hotel room in fifth.

Minh Ly had an up and down final table before Kostritsyn eliminated him too as Alexander’s 9’s were one better than Ly’s 8’s.  But that would be Kostritsyn’s last elimination as he got all-in against Eric Brooks’ two pair in a futile attempt.

So now it was down to Brooks and Wong for the bracelet.  Fu entered with a slight chip lead but Brooks gained all that back and more.  The final hand saw Wong taken out by Brooks’ diamonds flush.

After the victory, Brooks made the astonishing announcement that he was going to donate the whole $415,856 prize that he won to an educational foundation. 

Here’s the rest of the results:

Rank/Player/Money
1.Eric Brooks $415,856 
2.Fu Wong $259,910 
3.Alexander Kostritsyn $163,372 
4.Minh Ly $118,816 
5.Erik Seidel $92,825 
6.Jim Paluszek $74,260 
7.David Oppenheim $59,408 
8.Vasili Lazarou $48,269 
9.Phil Ivey $37,130 
10.Thomas Weideman $37,130 
11.Daniel Negreanu $33,417 
12.Jacobo Fernandez-Hernandez $33,417 
13.Alexander Kravchenko $29,704 
14.Robert Mizrachi $29,704 
15.David Levi $25,991 
16.Mike Fiorito $25,991