The 2011 World Series of Poker has just finished its fourth week of play and there have been a ton of big stories and 40 bracelets already awarded. Here is a quick rundown of the major stories so far.
Week 1 – Phil Ivey Sits Out and Jake Cody Wins $25k Heads-Up
The big story of the opening days of the 2011 WSOP was Phil Ivey’s announcement that he was going to skip the 2011 WSOP due to issues with Full Tilt Poker not paying players. He then filed a lawsuit for $150 Million claiming a breach of contract by the company in an attempt to get out of his non-compete agreement. Since then he has been spotted at Full Tilt Poker’s headquarters in Ireland in discussions with the owners.
Jake Cody won the $25,000 Heads-Up Championshp after taking out Yevgeniy Timoshinko in the final match. The $525,980 top prize was the largest awarded to a heads-up champion.
Also, the WSOP rematch series kicked off. Johnny Chan was able to defeat Phil Hellmuth to avenge his loss to him in 1989 WSOP Main Event. Chris Moneymaker was able to repeat history by beating Sammy Farha 2-1 in their best-of-three rematch of the 2003 WSOP Main Event.
Week 2 – Hellmuth Denied 12th Bracelet
The big story of week #2 was Phil Hellmuth’s run in the $10,000 NL 2-7 Lowball Championship. He not only made the final table but excelled and took a 3:1 chip lead into heads-up with John Juanda. Juanda then pulled off an amazing comeback to deny the 11-time bracelet winner his 12th. This was Juanda’s fifth bracelet and second in the game of lowball.
Matt Perrins defeated Chris Bjorin in the $1,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Event earlier in the week. Perrins was never in any read danger in the heads-up match, but what this win so amazing was the fact that he never played the game before this event and only learned the rules 45 minutes prior to the match. He watched some tutorials on Youtube regarding the game and applied NL Hold’em theory to the game to make the final table and win the bracelet.
Week 3 – ElkY Wins Stud Championship – Somerville Wins $1k Donkament
Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier won the $10,000 Stud World Championship after coming back from a great than 16:1 chip deficit and just two big bets left in his stack. He took over $331,000 for his victory and revealed after winning the event that this was his first ever stud event. Naturally, he now hopes that other tournaments will offer stud events in the future.
Jason Somerville was probably one of the best No-Limit Hold’em players to not win a bracelet in the game. That claim can no longer be made as he took down the Event #20 donkament for $493,091. He defeated Yashar Darian heads-up when Darian shoved with Ks-4d and ran into pocket aces from Somerville.
Mike Sexton made the final table of the $1,500 Stud 8 or Better Event and ultimately earned a chance to play for his second bracelet. Unfortunately, he started the heads-up match with Chris Viox as a sever chip underdog and was unable to recover. Chris Viox won over $200,000 for his first bracelet win.
Week 4 – Jason Mercier Wins 2nd Career Bracelet and Hellmuth Denied Again
Jason Mercier is considered one of the best tournament poker players in the world and proved it yet again by taking down the first ever $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Six-Max Event in WSOP history. He entered the final table as chip leader and held that lead for most of the final table. He defeated Hans Winzeler heads-up for his second career bracelet and $619,575. Mercier has two bracelets in PLO, the other coming in the 2009 $1,500 PLO Event.
Phil Hellmuth had another crack at his 12th bracelet in the Stud 8 or Better World Championship. He started the final table as one of the shorter stacks and rode a short stack through the entire final table. The downside to that is that he took the same short stack into heads-up play with Eric Rodawig. Hellmuth put up a fight, but could never get any real momentum. As a result, Eric Rodawig took the title to deny Hellmuth his 12th bracelet and take home $442,183.
The $1,000 Seniors Event set an all-time attendance record for a tournament with a single start day. They drew a record shattering field of 3,752 players to create a prize pool of over $3.37 Million. First place for the event was $557,435 and went to 50 year-old James Hess. Hess became the youngest ever Seniors Event champion in both the largest Seniors Event and largest single start day poker tournament in live poker history.
Just 13 preliminary events are left to kick off in the 2011 WSOP. Then, the Granddaddy of them all kicks off on July 7th in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event. A lot of stories are left to be told and a lot of bracelets are yet to be awarded this year, so prepare for a wild ride to end the summer.
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