Yesterday saw WSOP bracelet's awarded to Cliff Goldkind (Event 19, $1500 NLHE) and to Benjamin Scholl (Event 20, $5000 LHE) after three tough days of play. We also saw the start of play in two new events (Event 23, $3k NLHE Six Max and Event 24, $5k Omaha Hi-Low) and two more played down to the final stages as both Event 21 ($1k NLHE) and Event 22 ($2.5k TD Lowball) will play to a finish later today.
Goldkind was the first victor today as he closed out a great performance, beating over 2,300 opponents in order to pick up his first major cash in a live tournament and of course his first bracelet. He also walks away with a whopping $560k for his three days work. The biggest name left when play started today with 17 players remaining was that of Barry Schulman, and he did make the final table, although came up short of the top places as he busted in 8th spot as his short stacked shove with Qc8c was met with Goldkind's wired aces to bust the wily veteran. On his way to victory Goldkind actually took out five of the eight players standing between himself and victory, establishing his chip lead early on when he took out the final table's early chip leader Gary Burkes, once again with pocket aces (Burkes held AK) and never looking back. Goldkind entered heads up play against Kennii Nguyen with a huge chip lead and after just a few short hand the match was over with Goldkind's 66 holding up against Nguyen's KJ, handing Cliff Goldkind the title of WSOP Champion.
Event 20 took a little longer to decide only wrapping up a short time ago and the spoils (one gold bracelet and $206k) went to Benjamin Scholl who outlasted a 166 strong field in the $5k LHE event. There were a few well known names in the final 17 today but two renowned Limit Hold'Em specialists (Mike "Schneids" Schneider and Terrence Chan) both fell short of the final table. Interestingly when the final table gathered Jeff Schulman (Barry's son) was the chip leader, so father and son were playing final tables simultaneously. Schulman took a good run at the title holding the chip lead as play went four handed but ended up exiting in 3rd spot, 5 places higher than his old man.
When play reached the heads up stage Scholl had established a commanding 4:1 chip leader over his opponent Andrew Prock who eventually fell as his pocket 3's were outflopped by Scholl's A 10 on the flop and another new WSOP Champion was crowned.
After 2 days play the huge 2,799 field from Event 21 ($1k NLHE) has been cut to just 17 players after 205 more players fell yesterday. Notables still alive include recent Aussie Millions $100k challenge winner Dan Smith in 10th, and Eric Baldwin in 3rd. The current chip leader is Jamie Armstrong with 1.434m chips.
Event 22 ($2.5k 2-7 TD Lowball) played down to the final table and the talent packed table will finish business this evening. Among the nine returning players we have multiple bracelet winners Josh Arieh, Farzad Bonyadi and Layne Flack, bracelet winner David Baker and three time WSOP event runner up Shawn Buchanan so the remaining players will have their work cut out against experience like that. Currently leading the way is Baker with 381k chips and he'll be hoping to hang on to that spot to take his second bracelet and the $145k payday.
Two more events finished thier day 1's today as Event 23 ($3k NLHE Six Max) played down from 924 to 141 players and among those still in the running are; Jason Mercier, Liv Boeree, Eugene Katchalov, ElkY, Shaun Deeb, Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger and Roberto Romanello. Leading the way currently is Jeff Manza, followed in hot pursuit by online phenom Aaron "AEJones" Jones.
The other event which opened yesterday was Event 24 ($5k Omaha Hi-Low) which also attracted some major talent and among the 187 returning from the 256 starters are; Phil Ivey, Vanessa Selbst, Justin "BoostedJ" Smith, Jimmy Fricke, Scotty Nguyen, John Juanda and Kathy Liebert. The current chip lead is held by Niel Frites with big names Vitaly Lunkin and Richard "CHUFTY" Ashby occupying second and third spots at the moment.
Find more of the latest news and articles relating to the World Series of Poker in the 2012 WSOP-section.