Event #43 of the WSOP drew a surprisingly decent number of players for a Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-low Split-8 or Better tournament. In all, 720 players paid $1,500 to get into the tournament that had a prize pool just under one million dollars.

Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, Lee Watkinson, Tom Schneider, and Joe Hachem all took part in this tourney where around 100 players per hour were eliminated on the first day making things go rather quickly.

Greenstein and Schneider would be a couple of these unfortunate players along with people like Clonie Gowen, Gavin Smith, and Dutch Boyd.

By the end of the day, the leaderboards looked like this:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. Ed Smith 119,500
2. Shannon Shorr 86,900
3. Damon Singer 80,400
4. Martin Klaser 79,800
5. Larry Wright 75,300
6. Sam Khoueis 73,000
7. Gabe Costner 69,200
8. Jeff Bryan 66,900
9. Bryan Jolly 63,300
10. Erik Seidel 58,900

Only 68 people would be back for day 2 which made it so only 59 players had to be knocked out for the last table to be finalized. By the end, hardly any big name players would be left standing for day 3.

Erik Seidel and Tom Chambers were probably the most recognizable players left and here’s how things looked overall for the final table:

Seat/Player/Chips
Seat 1: Joseph Haddad – 135,000
Seat 2: Tom Chambers – 263,000
Seat 3: Larry Wright – 117,000
Seat 4: Chad Burum – 117,000
Seat 5: Michael Fetter – 288,000
Seat 6: Casey Kastle – 188,000
Seat 7: Jon Maren – 377,000
Seat 8: Martin Klaser – 337,000
Seat 9: Erik Seidel – 340,000

Tom Chambers stay at the final table would be a short one since he was the first one knocked out after Casey Kastle scooped the pot with a flush and nut low.

Larry Wright would take 8th place and Joseph Haddad went out next after Martin Klasser got lucky by flopping a wheel even though his hole cards were way worse than Haddad’s.

Chad Burum put the rest of his puny stack in and Martin Klasser also dealt him an exit card. 5th place would go to Jon Maren when Kastle was lucky enough to squeak by with a pair of 6’s.

Erik Seidel, who brought plenty of experience to the table, wouldn’t be carrying this final table experience on any longer when Kastle got a full house against his all-in call.

Heads-up play would be determined after Michael Fetter went out in 3rd. Fetter was only able to make a pair of 10’s while Klasser hit trips 7’s to win the hand.

Klasser went into play with Kastle holding a sizeable chip advantage and used this to intimidate Kastle with big bets making him fold quite often.

In the end, Kastle had to call with just a little bit of a stack remaining and was beaten by queens when he held jacks. Klasser raked $216,249 for the victory.

Here’s how others fared:

Rank/Player/Chips
1. Martin Klaser $216,249
2. Casey Kastle $137,985
3. Michael Fetter $83,538
4. Erik Seidel $68,304
5. Jon Maren $56,019
6. Chad Burum $44,226
7. Joseph Haddad $34,398
8. Larry Wright $27,027
9. Tom Chambers $19,656
10. Daniel Klein $12,285
11. Derek Kadota $12,285
12. Gary Hutzler $12,285
13. Mark Gallo $9,828
14. Douglas Mandeville $9,828
15. Jim Geary $9,828
16. James Griffith $7,371
17. Mikhail Ustinov $7,371
18. Ian Graham $7,371
19. Daniel Adams $5,601
20. David Manz $5,601
21. Laurent Lefrancq $5,601
22. Brent Carter $5,601
23. Ed Smith $5,601
24. Samir Khoueis $5,601
25. Shannon Shorr $5,601