2009 World Series of Poker Day 34 – The Final Stampede

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

I’m not necessarily the most brilliant person in the world, but today I was smarter than the average bear. Today is the final $1,500 “donkament” of the 2009 World Series of Poker and I realized my timing would bring me to the Amazon Room halls smack in the middle of the Final Lemur Stampede. Instead I took my time getting to the media area, a little orange juice and a tasty muffin. A nice casual walk through the Rio. By the time I strolled to my seat all 2,800 hopefuls were tossing chips around like so many useless pieces of ceramic.

Timing is crucial on these days, restart tournaments have already been pushed back by an hour and the poker kitchen is running out of lukewarm cardboard pizzas. Ashtrays and trashcans are overflowing. You cannot get caught on the wrong end of the hallway when the tournament goes on break, the “salmon swimming upstream” metaphor is far too easy.

Of course this is not the big news of the day. Day 4 of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship will bring us the final two tables and into the money. 19 players are looking for the big prize at the end and Full Tilt Poker will have 6 representatives in the remaining field with Gus Hansen, Huck Seed, Chau Giang, Erik Seidel, and David Chiu looking up at tournament leader Vitaly Lunkin. If Lunkin is able to pull off the win he will have taken down the two biggest buyin events of the 2009 World Series of Poker. His bracelet earlier this year was in the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em 40th Anniversary event.

Unfortunately for the media and fans, the restart has been moved to the much smaller green section were it’s nearly impossible to get a good view unless they got on the rail early and never leave.

The top story this morning has been yet another multiple bracelet winner at the 2009 World Series of Poker. Full Tilt pro Greg “FBT” Mueller won his second bracelet of the year, both wins coming in Limit Hold’em events. He is the fourth player to win at least two events and the second Team Full Tilt member after Phil Ivey. He will receive his bracelet at the ceremony today and stand for the Canadian National Anthem.

For the record, 2003 was the year with the most multiple event winners. The historic Chris Moneymaker Main Event win overshadowed a year in which 6 players won two bracelets. Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Layne Flack, Phil Hellmuth, Men “The Master “Nguyen, and Johnny “(censored)” Chan all added jewelry to each wrist that year. We won’t get there this year without some miracles, but a fantastic year none the less.

Several restarts are occurring today and their chip counts are after the jump:

$Greg \"FBT\" Mueller wins his second bracelet at the 2009 World Series of Poker$

$Greg \"FBT\" Mueller\'s second bracelet ceremony$

Event #49 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship
Buyin: $50,000
Number of Entries: 95
Net Prize Pool: $4,560,000
First Place Prize: $1,276,806
Total Spots Paid Out: 16
Players Remaining: 19

1	Vitaly Lunkin	1,527,000
2	Erik Sagstrom	1,315,000
3	Freddy Deeb	1,300,000
4	David Bach	1,265,000
5	Ville Wahlbeck	842,000
6	John Hanson	815,000
1	Gus Hansen	801,000
2	Mike Wattel	779,000
3	John Kabbaj	678,000
4	Huck Seed	672,000
5	Brett Richey	671,000
6	Antanas Gouga (Tony G)	642,000
1	Chau Giang	616,000
2	Steve Billirakis	576,000
3	Frank Kassela	499,000
4	Erik Seidel	464,000
5	David Chiu	397,000
6	Ray Dehkharghani	262,000
7	Todd Brunson	145,000

Event #51 No Limit Hold’em
Buyin: $1,500
Number of Entries: 2,781
Net Prize Pool: $3,796,065
First Place Prize: $664,426
Total Spots Paid Out: 297
Players Remaining: 30

1	Thibaud Durand	1,650,000
2	Owen Crowe	1,002,500
3	Josh Schlein	875,000
4	Kapalas Georgios	782,000
5	Steven Levy	657,000
6	Eric Lupovich	548,000
7	Jesse Haabuk	434,000
8	Diego Vilela	425,000
9	Rafael Belloso	410,000
10	Viktoria Szilasi	393,000
11	Andrew Chen	390,000
12	Nathan Page	359,000
13	Jesper Mertz	359,000
14	Chris Zurawski	332,000
15	Mark Matern	314,000
16	Albert Kenny	279,000
17	Alex Jacob	274,000
18	Terry Fleischer	267,000
19	Carsten Joh	263,000
20	Michael Worrmann	236,000
21	Craig O’Neill	235,000
22	Ben Truelove	222,000
23	Jeffrey Vanchiro	215,000
24	David Walasinski	211,000
25	Allan Lebiszczak	210,000
26	Jochum Weenink	193,000
27	Billie Payne	95,000
28	Bobby Diaz	90,000
29	Jason Hewer	89,000
30	Jon Mazursky	DNR

Event #52 Triple Chance No Limit Hold’em
Buyin: $3,000
Number of Entries: 854
Net Prize Pool: $2,357,040
First Place Prize: $506,800
Total Spots Paid Out: 81
Players Remaining: 149

Top 50 chip stacks:

1	Horan, Timothy	149,000
2	Pablou, Harris	137,300
3	Holt, Karga	130,600
4	Esfandiari, Antonio	127,900
5	Bornstein, David	120,800
6	Cahail, Blake	120,800
7	Brummelhuis, Michiel	120,000
8	Scala, Tracy	119,200
9	Baron, Isaac	114,000
10	Lisandro, Jeff	113,800
11	McGowan, Joe	113,700
12	Spinella, Anthony	106,700
13	Gerasimov, Kirill	106,400
14	Jarosh, Elijah	106,400
15	Bruel, Patrick	105,500
16	Van Fleet, Jon	101,100
17	Schleger, Shane	100,700
18	Sudworth, James	97,000
19	Krouner, Ken	93,500
20	Feldman, Peter	93,100
21	Kwaysser, Valdemar	92,700
22	Tare, Jonathan	91,900
23	Childs, Lee	91,600
24	Millar, Alex	91,000
25	Noda, Michael	88,300
26	Vardjavand, Varahram	86,200
27	Liu, JJ	85,000
28	Taylor, James	83,500
29	Kochelaevskiy, Vladimir	81,600
30	Patrick, Joe	79,500
31	Cajelais, Erik	79,300
32	Van Til, Johannes	74,800
33	Greenwood, Max	72,400
34	Andrejkovics, Milan	70,200
35	Lodden, Johnny	69,700
36	Rybachenko, Sergey	67,600
37	Jacques, Vincent	67,300
38	Applegate, Thomas	66,600
39	Lynch, Eric	66,500
40	Salas, Damian	66,400
41	Neilson, Daniel	66,300
42	Ronconi, Darryl	66,000
43	Testud, Paul	66,000
44	Tehan, Joseph	65,800
45	Rutter, Stuart	64,500
46	Tran, An	58,900
47	MacPhee, Kevin	58,600
48	Caro, Mike	58,500
49	Matte, Jean-Philippe	57,900
50	Binger, Nick	57,700

Event #53 Seven Card Stud/8
Buyin: $1,500
Number of Entries: 467
Net Prize Pool: $637,455
First Place Prize: $159,390
Total Spots Paid Out: 48
Players Remaining: 136

Top 50 chip stacks:

1	Prescot, Allie	52,500
2	Geary, Jim	51,000
3	Sklar, Richie	44,000
4	Brown, Eldon	38,100
5	Markakis, George	38,000
6	Duke, Annie	36,600
7	Gilbert, Zak	36,300
8	David, Jared	34,700
9	Luske, Marcel	34,300
10	Negraneau, Daniel	33,100
11	Miller, Ron	33,100
12	Paxton, Doug	32,700
13	Kantor, Larry	32,500
14	Erdman, Travis	30,700
15	Marsters, Tim	29,800
16	Schwartz, Rick	29,600
17	Kohler, William	29,500
18	Skommo, Orjan	29,300
19	Vance, Tim	29,100
20	Rosenthal, Yotam	29,000
21	Greenstein, Barry	28,000
22	Turner, Jon	27,700
23	Wenzel, John	26,000
24	D’Alessandro, Timothy	25,400
25	Richardson, John	25,200
26	Hughes, Ryan	25,200
27	Swinford, Brian	25,100
28	Barbieri, Al	25,000
29	Rygol, Bernd	24,900
30	Savage, Matt	24,600
31	Rosenfeldt, Jack	23,700
32	Phillips, Dale	23,400
33	Smith, Matt	23,400
34	Saab, Doug	22,800
35	Halpern, David	22,600
36	Littlejohn, Dana	21,400
37	Pilewiez, Richard	19,800
38	Adelson, Daniel	19,600
39	Sparks, Ian	19,400
40	Sacino, Andrew	19,300
41	Wynn, Joseph	19,100
42	Osteriand, Felix	19,100
43	Stern, Max	18,900
44	Robertson, John	18,900
45	Rosenberg, Menachem	18,800
46	Chad, Norman	18,600
47	Leeds, Brandon	18,500
48	Staalesen, Jason	18,100
49	Paz, Jose	18,100
50	Su, Stephen	17,900