Two more WSOP champs were crowned last night as Jan-Peter Jachtmann took the $10k PLO title and Ronnie Bardah the $2.5k LHE Six Handed.
Bardah looked an unlikely champion as the day began, sitting in last place out of the ten players left in play with only 64k in chips (Vincent Gironda the days opening chip leader held 550k at this point). However, Bardah started well and within an hour he was right back among the pack and within two hours had over 500k in chips and was challenging for the chip lead.
Joep van den Bijgaart, Chad Brown and Rep Porter were all eliminated quite early into the final day and when the table was seven handed it looked like Gironda might just run away with it as he had more than twice the chips of anybody at the table with his 775k dwarfing the only player with over 300k chips, Bardah, who by this time was down to 350k. Next out was LHE specialist Terrence Chan who found himself crippled doubling up Sorrel Mizzi on an A high board with his A7 crushed by Mizzi's AQ before Mizzi heaped on the misery, eliminating Chan soon after with Chan's jd9d never catching Mizzi's A 10 (especially after an A hit the flop). At this point Gironda extended his lead to approach 900k in chips - however soon after he lost a series of big pots and eventually lost the chip lead to Bardah who took a huge +300k pot after making a full house vs Gironda.
Bardah extended his lead taking big pots from Mizzi and Gironda to go over the million chip mark. When play reached three handed following the demise of Brent Wheeler at the hands of Bardah the chip lead changed hands as Marco Johnson scooped a few big pots to overtake Bardah, including the elimination of Vincent Gironda in third. Heads up play was a fairly even affair as both players held a little over a million chips until Bardah took a huge +1million chips pot after flopping trip 2's on a 10 2 2 flop holding Q2. This gave Bardah a more than 3-1 chip lead he never relinquished. It took a further 20 minutes of Bardah slowly but surely eroding the remainder of Johnson's stack before Bardah took the title after an hour of heads up play with Johnson committing his remaining chips with a flush draw on the turn which failed to materialise as Bardah's top pair help up and he took home the title, bracelet and the $182k first prize.
The always toughly contested $10k PLO crown went to German Jan-Peter Jachtmann after a relatively short six hour day in which 13 players played to a finish. There were some big names coming back for the final day but most of them were eliminated fairly early as John Kabbaj, Ville Wahlbeck, Sammy Farha and Jason Mercier were all among the first six eliminations (the others being Adam Kornuth and Joe Kushner). The final table was fairly dominated by Jachtmann and bracelet winner Andrew Brown, who between them eliminated 4 of the last six players. When heads up play began Jachtmann held a 4.9m to 3.8m chip lead over Brown. Despite the deep stacks the heads up match was a pretty short one, lasting less than half an hour - and it all came down to one monster pot and an unlucky river for Brown.
Brown held QcQdJs7s and looked in excellent shape as the flop revealed 2d 3h Qs. However, Jachtmann had also flopped well, holding Ac4s5h2s for a wrap draw. All the money went in on the turn after Jachtmann check raised Brown on the flop and bet 1.1 million on the 9s turn (which gave both players a flush draw, Brown's being higher) only to see Brown go all in. Brown was a pretty big favourite to take the monster pot as his higher flush draw took away some of Jachtmann's outs. However a heartbreaking Ad hit the river to ruin Brown's chances of a second bracelet and the gold went to Jachtmann along with the $661k prize money.
Day 2 of Event 41 ($3k NLHE) reduced the field from 324 to 30 (day 1 started on 1,394) with a few big names still chasing glory including; Scott Montgomery, Dan Shak, JP Kelly, Fabrice Soulier, Shannon Shorr and Jason Koon. At the days end the chip leader was Joseph Chaplin with his 1.085 million just a touch ahead of the last woman standing, Jackie Glazier on 1.077m
It was also Day 2 of Event 41 ($2.5k Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8-or-Better) and the day ended with just 22 players remaining with a familiar face at the top of the tree as 5 time bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro leads with 355k chips (average 134k). Lisandro is followed by two more name players in second and third as Perry Friedman and Norman Chad are breathing down Lisandro's neck. The event will play to a finish tonight.
Event 43 ($1500 NLHE) started yesterday and once again we saw a huge field with 2,770 entrants competing for the bracelet. By the close of play the field had been narrowed by over 90% with 265 players returning for day 2. In such a huge field there were obviously a lot of name players to be eliminated. Just a few to hit the rail were; Vanessa Rousso, Liv Boeree, David Williams, Kara Scott, Jake Cody, Joe Cada and Barry Greenstein while the likes of Neil Channing, Randy "nanonoko" Lew, Pius Heinz, Chino Rheem, Tommy Vedes and Andy Frankenberger will come back for day 2. The current chip leader is Sam Barnhart with 169k (average 47k).
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