Event #20: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em
The WSOP came close to getting its first female winner of the 2015 series as Natasha Barbour made it to heads up against Benjamin Zamani. The instant headline failed to materialize, and Zamani walked away with first prize money of $460,640.
Zamani now has a 1st and 2nd place finish in this year’s WSOP, having been defeated for a bracelet heads up against Barry Hutter in event #14, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout.
Barbour’s defeat came with a bluff gone wrong. Her 10-9 holding ran up against Zamani’s A-Q on an ace high flop. Her shove after a second ace fell on the turn was instantly called by Zamani, leaving Barbour without any outs to win.
Event #22: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em
Sam “Pudge” Greenwood started the day in 16th of 22 players remaining, but worked his way rapidly up the leaderboard, and finally won his first bracelet as well as $318,977.
Greenwood had to survive a field of 1,915 players before he got heads up against 23 year old Cole Jackson from Seattle. Greenwood is the first Canadian bracelet winner of the series.
“I really wouldn’t call myself a poker pro,” Greenwood said after his victory. “I’m not really sure what I am or what I want to do. I just hope poker gives me enough of a steady income to do something later on.”
Event #23: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball
Christian Pham provided the most remarkable story of the day. He intended to enter the $1,500 NLHE event, but made a mistake when registering and found himself sat at a 2-7 Draw Lowball event.
“They had started dealing already, so I couldn’t do anything,” Pham explained later. “If they had not started dealing, I would have told the floorman and asked to be unregistered.”
Pham had never played this particular poker variant before. “I’d played lots of poker before, but not this game,” Pham said. “I guess I learned fast.”
On his way to claiming the bracelet and $81,314 prize money he managed to survive a final table that included 1996 WSOP Main Event champion Huck Seed.
Event #24: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.
Day 2 of the $1,500 HORSE event has cut the field down to 31 players from the original 299 entrants.
Chip leader Mike Watson has over a million dollars in WSOP cashes, but lacks the status enhancing bracelet. His stack of 634,000 chips puts him in good position to change that.
Phil Hellmuth is short stacked in 29th, and Brandon Cantu is well established in mid-field. British player Stuart Rutter, who has picked up over $90,000 for his two previous cashes in this year’s events is in with a good chance of taking that number over the $100,000 mark. He’s in 7th place with over quarter of a million chips.
Event #25: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed
Yesterday’s chip leader Dan Smith failed to make it to the end of the day’s play, as 23 players survive through to Day 3.
A brutal field remains, with players such as Joseph Cheong, Sean Deeb, Anthony Zinno and Dominik Nitsche all still in the hunt.
Tyler Cornell has the biggest stack after busting Cord Garcia in a monster pot. Dan O’Brien, whose 33 WSOP cashes haven’t yet earned him a bracelet, is the only other player to bag over a million chips at the end of the day.
Event #26: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha
There’s another million dollar plus prize pool available in the PLO event #26, after 1,293 players registered, creating total prize money of $1,163,700.
Mo Khan ended the day with the top stack, but behind him are some experienced WSOP veterans, including John Racener, Mike Leah, Allen Kessler and former Main Event champion, Greg Merson.
Event #27: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship
The old school are out in force for the Championship Seven Card Stud event. Cory Zeidman led the pack for the first half of the day’s play, but as the chips were bagged, it was Bryn Kenney who ended up as the chip leader.
The top three on the leaderboard are all former bracelet winners, with Andre Akkari and Brian Hastings sitting in second and third place respectively. Justin “BoostedJ” Smith is in fourth, but despite his online success, he has yet to win a bracelet.
In fifth place there are another six bracelets in the form of Daniel Negreanu. Only 91 players entered the event, so the top prize is a relatively paltry $239,518.
