Tuesday was a day that brought us bonus final table action when the final table of Event #53 ran over, and went into a fourth day of action. We also saw the aside action in the Players Championship start to have an effect, and all around the Rio, players busted out of every event possible.
Event #53
The $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Event #53 saw David Vamplew come up just short of winning his first WSOP bracelet for the second time this series. He was obviously the player with the edge in the heads up matchup, but as every experienced player knows, having an edge heads up isn’t necessarily going to give you the win. The winner of the bracelet and the $665,397 first pace prize money was Brett Shaffer, in what was by far his biggest cash of all time. A full report on the final table is available here, but as you’re here, this is how the final table ended up.
- Brett Shaffer – $665,397
- David Vamplew – $413,157
- Arttu Raekorpi – $291,392
- Loni Harwood – $210,456
- Mike Watson – $153,580
- Diego Zeiter – $113,819
- Jonathan Cohen – $85,193
- Darren Rabinowitz – $64,513
- Matias Ruzzi – $49,420
Event #54
The $1,000 No Limit Hold’em Event #54 saw the first female winner of an open event since Vanessa Selbst did it back in 2007. Dana Castaneda beat Jason Bigelow heads up to take the title and the $454,207 prize. A full report will be up later, but until then, you’ll just have to sated by the final table payouts:
- Dana Castaneda – $454,207
- Jason Bigelow – $281,207
- Mattias Bednarek – $198,883
- Michael Zucchet – $143,642
- Philippe Clerc – $105,007
- Barry Hutter – $77,685
- Jacob Bazeley – $58,147
- Joseph Wertz – $44,032
- Kenneth Gregersen – $33,731
Event #55
The $50,000 Players Championship Event #55 is still going, but it’s doing it without the “Texas Dolly” Doyle Brunson. He busted out in a Seven Card Stud hand against Ofir Mor when his buried 7s were up against a split pair of aces. both improved to two pair, but Mor’s Aces were still the best. Doyle isn’t going to be collecting on any of the bets he made before starting this event.
Joining Doyle on the rail are Jason Mercier and Jared Bleznick, who both had bets against Brunson. Also now on the rail are Elky, Justin Bonomo and David Oppenheim.
With 26 players remaining the field is still rather full of named players, with John Juanda (89,000), Justin Smith (163,000) and Erick Lindgren (165,000) having the smallest stacks going into the penultimate day. The stacks at the other end of the scale are:
- Don Nguyen – 2,059,000
- Mike Gorodinsky – 1,650,000
- Minh Ly – 1,458,000
- Michael Glick – 1,130,000
- John Hennigan – 1,085,000
- David Benyamine – 1,052,000
- Troy Burkholder – 1,047,000
- Jonathan Duhamel – 1,038,000
- Mike Leah – 980,000
- Matthew Ashton – 912,000
The plan is to play down to a final table of 8, starting at 2pm.
Event #56
261 players may have started the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em Event #56 but only 23 made it all the way to the end of the day. Players to fall by the wayside included Erik Seidel (170th for $4,462), Dan Smith (161st for $4,857), Pius Heinz (112th for $5,371), Matt Stout (52nd for $12,124) and Jessie Sylvia (35th for $17,456).
The big chip holders coming into the last scheduled day are:
- OJ Ojiri – 1,510,000
- Rahul Raju Byrraju – 1,190,000
- Vincent Maglio – 884,000
- Eric Kurtzman – 832,000
- Mark Golub – 805,000
- Sebastien Comel – 781,000
- Nicolas Levi – 762,000
- Alex Dovxhenko – 727,000
- Sergey Lebedev – 638,000
- Fabian Deimann – 622,000
The players will be back in the Amazon room at 1pm to play the second day of action.
Event #57
The first day of the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Event #57 saw 784 players start the long climb toward the gold on top of the mountain, but only 252 make it through the first ten levels of action. Players who plummeted to their doom off the mountain include Phil Ivey, “Mad” Marvin Rettenmaier, David “Bakes” Baker and Chris Moorman.
Players still clinging to the mountainside include Liv Boeree (12,000), JP Kelly (13,000), Maria Ho (21,000), Vicky Coren (33,000), Calvin Anderson (48,000) and Dan Smith (78,000).
The big stacks going into the second day are:
- Mark Darner – 222,700
- Timothy Reilly – 154,200
- Philipp Gruissem – 143,800
- Matt Perrins – 142,500
- Patrick Francis – 135,200
- Sam Trickett – 116,000
- Matt Berkley – 110,000
- Antonio Esfandiari – 97,000
- Elliot Hebden – 94,200
- Chris Hunichen – 90,000
The players will be continuing the action at 13:00 in the Amazon room.
Player of the Year
Again, only one change in the Player of the Year race as David Vamplew’s second runner up finish in Event #53 propelled him back into the top ten of the race. If he had won the event, he’s be pushing Baker and Negreanu at the top of the league.
- Daniel Negreanu – 475.84
- David “Bakes” Baker – 475.35
- Tom Schneider – 438.51
- Marco Johnson – 430.63
- Chris Klodnicki – 400.80
- Anthony Gregg – 390.00
- Steve Sung – 369.50
- Jared Humby – 368.73
- David Vamplew – 360.00
- Daniel Kelly – 344.70
Wednesday is going to be full of action, with the final table of Event #56, continuing action in the other events, and Day 1A of the Little One for One Drop Event #58 starting up. It’s going to be a day full of action and fun.