One new WSOP Champ was crowned yesterday as Max Steinberg eclipsed the second place finish he made at a $1500 NLHE Event at 2010's WSOP by capturing the bracelet for Event 33, $1k NLHE, and with it the $440k first prize.
When play resumed yesterday there were just 14 players left from the starting 2,795 with Steinberg in 5th place, although well within reaching distance of the top spots. WSOP $1500 PLO Champ Vincent Van Der Fluit was in the pack looking for his second bracelet of 2012 but fell way short in the end, being eliminated during the very first level of play.
By the time the official final table was reached Steinberg was among the four players to have gone over the 1 million chips mark, whereas the days early leader Vitaly Meshcheriakov had fallen to second bottom of the pile and was soon sent to the rail after he called Samuel Gerber's shove pre-flop and his AK failed to connect with the board as Gerber's 66 held up. With play seven handed Steinberg was in bad shape but a great call against then chip leader Dylan Hortin (Steinberg called a flop bet and a big river bet on a KK 9 5 10 board holding Q9 to scoop the pot) propelled Steinberg to go on a fantastic run to take the chip lead. After taking out Dylan Hortin in 4th place Steinberg was the chip leader as the tournament went three handed. Three handed play however was a long, draw out affair and it looked as though Samuel Gerber was heading to the rail as he made a foolhardy shove with Ah8h and was snapped by Steinberg who held QQ. At this point Gerber had Steinberg covered by a few hundred thousand chips and was left in very bad shape. Gerber quicly rallied however and hit three double ups against in under 15 minutes, regaining the chip lead and putting Stout on life support before he fell to Steinberg - leaving Gerber and Steinberg fairly even (4.4m to 4m) as they entered HU play.
Heads up play lasted around 90 minutes but Steinberg was in control from the outset and once he assumed the chip lead he slowly but surely eroded Gerber's stack and never looked in any danger of picking up the bracelet. Gerber duly obliged, shoving his final 1.7m in on a 3 4 K flop holding 10 4 and was called by Steinberg's 10 10. Gerber was drawing incredibly thin and the board couldn't produce the miracle 4 he needed to survive and the WSOP title went to Max Steinberg.
Event 34, $5k PLO Six Handed played down to just 11 players yesterday from the 72/419 remaining at the start of play. Today saw the elimination of big names including; Mike Sexton, JC Tran, David Benyamine, Shaun Deeb, Erick Lindgren and Tom "KingsOfCards" Marchese. Big names still in the fight for the title are the short stacked Joseph Cheong and Kevin MacPhee with 20120 $5k NLHE bracelet winner Jason DeWitt a little higher up the list. Current chip leader is Naoya Kihara with a decent chip lead, holding 1.55 million chips while no other player has breached seven figures as yet. The event will play to a finish this evening.
Event 35, $2.5k Mixed Hold'Em played down to the final table today with 9 players from the original 393 left in contention. The big news from this event has to be that the final table will include none other than Phil Ivey. In an astonishing run of form Ivey will now play at his 5th WSOP final table in two weeks in an event he entered five hours late after busting from the $10k HORSE final table in 5th place just over a day ago.
Ivey will certainly have his work cut out to take home his 9th bracelet here however as he is currently near the bottom with 169k. However, with the 9 players all bunch fairly tightly a couple fo good hands could see Mr Ivey in with a decent chance and only a fool would write him off just yet. The current chip leader is Joep van den Bijgaart on 605k chips and he is closely followed by Samuel Golbuff then by bracelet winners Erik Cajelais and Michael Gathy.
Two new events started yesterday as both Event 36, $3k NLHE Shootout and Event 37, $2.5k 8 Game Mix got underway. The Shootout event attracted 587 players whose numbers were reduced to 60 at the close of play, with 10 new six handed tables set for tomorrow. Name players winning their respective tables yesterday included; Antonio Esfandiari, James Akenhead, Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo, Melanie Weisner and Steve Billarikis while plenty more were sent packing including Phil Hellmuth, John Juanda, Daniel "Kid Poker" Negreanu, Liv Boeree, Isaac "philivey2694" Haxton and Chris Moorman. In the 8 game mix we saw a field of 477 reduced to 209 yesterday. Currently leading is bracelet winner Dan Kelly on 56.8k (average 17k) with fellow bracelet winners Jeff Madsen and Ylon Schwartz also high up the leader board. Also in contention are the like of Gavin Griffin, Sorel Mizzi, Barry Greenstein, Bryn Kenney, Daniel Idema and Andy Bloch while bust outs included; Xian Liu, Mike Matusow, Erik Lindgren, Brandon Cantu, Jonathan Duhamel, Erik Seidel and David Back.
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