Having already seen the regular Seven Card Stud championship go by, the WSOP featured the World Championship of Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split-8 or Better in Event #33.
With a hefty entry fee of $5,000, only 261 players paid the buy-in which brought the grand prize total to $1,226,700.
The buy-in certainly didn’t scare away star players such as Mike Sexton, Barry Greenstein, Tony G, Erik Seidel, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Annie Duke, and Chris Ferguson.
A few of them were able to navigate through the tough field and, at the end of the day, Ivey, Ferguson, Sexton, Greenstein, and Negreanu were all very much alive.
Here is how the chip leaders looked:
Player/Rank/Chips
1. Matt Grapenthien 51,900
2. Victor Shalom 51,100
3. Robert Mizrachi 49,600
4. Sean Sheikhan 46,900
5. Vegard Nygaard 46,100
6. Frank Thompson 44,700
7. Bob Lauria 42,600
8. Tad Jurgens 41,100
9. Thang Duc Nguyen 41,000
10. Steve Sung 40,900
The second day of the Stud 8 or Better championship was a marathon session as players battled on for over 16 hours. But the field had to be whittled down to a final table no matter what it took to go from 120 players to 8.
Out of the aforementioned players, only Annie Duke and Chris Ferguson managed to keep their chips and stay awake long enough to make the 7 a.m. final cut. Howard Lederer didn’t make the cut, however, and was the last elimination in 9th.
Here’s how the rest of the table looked:
Rank/Player/Chips
1. Sebastian Ruthenberg: 663,000
2. Chris Ferguson: 434,000
3. Alessio Isaia: 398,000
4. Marcel Luske: 308,000
5. Robert Beveridge: 308,000
6. Annie Duke: 277,000
7. Steve Sung: 207,000
8. Bob Lauria: 40,400
Bob Beveridge had found himself as the short stack a little while into final table play and Marcel Luske showed no mercy in eliminating him as Luske scooped the pot.
Annie Duke did some pot scooping next as she almost hit The Wheel on the low hand and had a pair of kings to end Steve Sung’s final table run.
Alessio Isaia went all-in to grab the low hand against Sebastian Ruthenberg but came up short in that effort and was eliminated in 6th place.
Annie Duke had her chip stack decimated by Chris Ferguson earlier. But Ferguson wasn’t content as he once again delivered a blow to her chip stack – this time for good.
Bob Lauria was enjoying his time at the table a little bit more after Marcel Luske tried to sneak a pair of 5’s by him. But Lauria hit a pair of 7’s on the river and ended up winning the hand to eliminated Luske.
But Lauria couldn’t celebrate for long as Chris Ferguson hit a full house against him to put him out in 3rd and set up heads-up play between Ferguson and Ruthenberg.
Ferguson was up, then down, then up 5-1 at one point but Ruthenberg hung in there the whole time. Eventually, Lauria evened it up and Ferguson had to accept runner-up when Ruthenberg’s two-pair bested Chris’s aces.
Ruthenberg took home $328,756 for first place and Ferguson got $202,406 for second.
Here’s the rest of the results:
Rank/Player/Money
1. Sebastian Ruthenberg $328,756
2. Chris (Jesus) Ferguson $202,406
3. Robert Lauria $125,737
4. Marcel Luske $95,069
5. Annie Duke $73,602
6. Alessio Isaia $58,268
7. Steve Sung $46,001
8. Robert Beveridge $36,801
9. Howard Lederer $30,667
10. David Benyamine $30,667
11. Chau Giang $24,534
12. Farzad Rouhani $24,534
13. Allen Cunningham $18,400
14. Barry Greenstein $18,400
15. Matt Grapenthien $12,267
16. Aleksandr Dzianisau $12,267
17. Jan Suchanek $11,040
18. Kirill Gerasimov $11,040
19. William Kohler $11,040
20. Thang Nguyen $11,040
21. Robert (Bob) Feduniak $11,040
22. Douglas Ganger $11,040
23. Cyndy Violette $11,040
24. Hasan Habib $11,040