World Poker Tour Championships 2009
WPT Season 7

Day 1A

The World Poker Tour Championships for Season 7 2009 have begun for Day 1A with 126 in attendance. All players will start witl 100,000 in chips with 90 minute levels in return for their $25,000 buy in. Daily goal will be 5 levels of play. Lots of players were off to good starts. Andy Bloch hit a straight flush (2 - 6 of diamonds), to increase his stack to over 190,000. Cliff Josephy hit quad 9's for a nice sized win. Others who finished the day in the positive were Daniel Negreanu with 110,000 chips, David Pham 118,000, Johnny Chan 285,000, Burt Boutin 280,000, David Benyamine 195,000 and Vadim Trincher with 300,000 chips.

Among the busted were Phil Hellmuth Jr. courtesy of Amnon Filippi who made a set of Queens by the river. (Amazingly Phil came late at 4:00 and left by 4:15!!!) Following Phil were Daniel Alaei, Kevin Saul and John Gale. By the time 5 levels had passed, there were 105 remaining that will move on to Day 2. We have not received the proper chip count for the top players, but will print it once it is released.

Day 1B

Another 212 players came to the WPT Championship on Day 1B, making the total 338 players. Lots of names in the field including tennis player Boris Becker, Mimi Tran, David Singer, Dutch Boyd, Bill Edler, Clonie Gowan, Robert Mizrachi and Jimmy Fricke. The prize pool is also completely huge with first place taking home $2,143,655 and money going to the top 50 finishers. Here are the payouts for the final table:

1. $2,143,655
2. $1,446,265
3. $776,245
4. $571,965
5. $408,550
6. $285,985

1. Daniel Fuhs -- 254,200 chips
2. Steve Billirakis -- 232,450 chips
3. Justin Young -- 231,425 chips
4. Mohamad Kowssarie -- 230,000 chips
5. Blake Cahil -- 221,675 chips
6. J.C. Tran -- 218,300 chips

Day 2

The players from 1A and 1B will play for another 5 levels with 90 minutes each, trying to survive the day. Play is at level 6 with 400/800 and a 100 ante. Early on Phil Laak doubled his stack to over 180K after his set of A's ran over the set of Q's belonging to Glen Witmer. Shortly afterwards, Glen busted out of the tournament. Also sent to the sidelines were Amit Makhija, Alec Torelli, David Ulliott, Robert Mizrachi, Amnon Filippi, Issac Haxton, David Williams, Gavin Smith who lost to a set of 10's, David Pham, Jonathan Little after his A K ran into the set of Kings made by an opponent and Erik Seidel. Cliff Josephy put his life on the line with pocket 8's preflop, only to be called by J. C. Tran with A K suited. Another Ace came on the turn and Josephy was defeated.

But some made huge plays such as Bertrand Grospellier in a hand with Shawn Cunix. With the board showing J 10 9 8 K, Bertrand went allin and was called by Shawn. Shawn turned over K Q but was ousted after Bertrand revealed A Q for the Broadway straight. Bertrand raked over 545,000 chips and Shawn was then placed on pain medication with 30,000 left in his stack. With just over 8 hours of action, there were 169 left after today's rout. Here are the top 5 in the field:

1. Jean Thorel -- 760,000
2. Justin Young -- 710,000
3. Dan Heimiller -- 650,000
4. Bertrand Grospellier -- 610,000
5. Joseph Parker -- 530,000

Day 3

With blinds at 1200/2400 and a 300 ante, the 169 players will hammer it out for another 5 levels of play. Each level will be 90 minutes in length. One of the first to go was "The Professor" Howard Lederer when he had to make his all in move short stacked with Q 7 against Bertrand Grospellier who won with A 7 on his side. Following him was Brandon Cantu, Nick Schulman, Chau Giang, Francois Safeiddine, Daniel Negreanu who had his pocket K's meet up with another player with pocket 10's who turned them into a full house (10's/4's), Allen Kessler, Layne Flack, Ted Lawson, Joe Sebok and Jon Friedberg.

But it was not all gloom and doom at the Bellagio. Other players who made the cut for Day 4 include Nick Binger and Phil Ivey each with 1,036,000 chips, Freddy Deeb 932,000, Jennifer Harman 828,000, Jeff Madsen 712,000, Scotty Nguyen 557,000, Barney Boatman 534,000, Steve Sung 392,000, Bertrand Grospellier 378,000 and Chris Ferguson with 338,000 in his stack. A total of 62 players will go to the next round tomorrow.

1. Steve Billirakis -- 1,722,000
2. Matt Hyman -- 1,663,000
3. Mark Seif -- 1,315,000
4. Nenad Medic -- 1,306,000
5. David Singer -- 1,116,000
6. Blake Cahill -- 1,059,000

Day 4

Today will have action continuing with blinds at 5000/10000 with an ante of 1000. Plus, the money will begin filling pockets at number 50. Some of the early busts include Jimmy Fricke, Sammy Farha, Kathy Liebert who had her A J suited lose to the pocket 9's of Scotty Nguyen, Chad Bautista and Mike Matusow who had the misfortune of having his pocket Q's meet the pocket A's of Justin Young. Steve Brecher also lost to pocket A's belonging to Hyon Kim.

When it came down to the money, the first to see cash in position 50 was Cody Slaubaugh receiving $32,685 for his efforts. Others who saw the same amount were Fred Bonyadi (47th), David Benyamine (45th), Jimmy Tran (44th) and David Singer (41st). Phil Ivey lost a battle with Scotty Nguyen and left in 34th place ($40,855). Chris Ferguson was eliminated in 28th as was Nenad Medic (27th) and Steve Billirakis (26th) with each receiving $49,025. Hyon Kim took the 25th spot and $49,025 to boot.

After a few more hands, the 24 remaining packed their chips and went for some well deserved sleep. Some who will see a seat at the tables on Day 5 include Shannon Shorr with 1,200,000 chips in his stack, Freddy Deeb 1,575,000, Jennifer Harman 821,000, Nick Binger 401,000, Eric Liu 844,000, David Grey 322,000 and Jeff Madsen 1,265,000.

1. Eugene Katchalov -- 4,294,000
2. Christian Harder -- 3,083,000
3. Yevgeniy Timoshenko -- 2,613,000
4. Justin Young -- 2,553,000
5. Brian Rast -- 1,931,000
6. Scotty Nguyen -- 1,823,000

Day 5

Officials have stated that play will continue until there are 10 players left. Blinds were at 15,000/30,000 and 4,000 ante . Player of the day had to go to Scotty Nguyen as he made big gains and was able to sustain them. Close to the end of the day, he won a huge pot off of Justin Young which pushed him up to 6.2 million in chips. Lots of other players actually made more but lost it going down and in some cases out of the tournament.

But some players did not make it this round such as Jeff Madsen who busted out in 18th place. Madsen went all in with pocket 7's and lost to the Ace high flush of Sinan Yoyen. Blake Cahill lost to the paired Kings of Yevgeniy Timoshenko to take home $65,370 for 16th place. Freddy Deeb was eliminated in 12th place taking home $81,710 after losing to the Ace high hand of Brian Rast. Jennifer Harman went to the rail in 11th place earning $81,710 after her pocket Aces were beaten by the two pair (10's/2's) of Yevgeniy Timoshenko. And that ended Day 5 at the WPT championships with 10 remaining. Here are the top 6 with chip counts:

1. Scotty Nguyen -- 5,880,000
2. Yevgeniy Timoshenko -- 5,105,000
3. Christian Harder -- 4,650,000
4. Justin Young -- 4,220,000
5. Shannon Shorr -- 3,155,000
6. Brian Rast -- 3,025,000

Day 6

This round took less than 5 hours to complete as there were only 4 eliminations needed to form the televised final table. First to go was Bruno Fituossi in 10th who went to the middle with pocket Kings and was called by Yevgeniy Timoshenko with A J. The flop had A 4 4 7 6, giving Yevgeniy Timoshenko two pair and the win. In 9th was Eugene Katchalov who lost to the Broadway straight of Ran Azor. Justin Young walked to the sidelines in 8th after Brian Rast made a set of Queens. Finally, in 7th place was Brian Rast who moved all in with A K suited having over 5.7 million in his stack. He was called by Yevgeniy Timoshenko who had pocket K's. After the board put two more 6's on the board, Yevgeniy won with two pair (K's/6's) and took down the largest pile of chips in the championship tournament.

1. Yevgeniy Timoshenko -- 13,000,000
2. Christian Harder -- 7,425,000
3. Bertrand Grospellier -- 5,955,000
4. Scotty Nguyen -- 3,275,000
5. Ran Azor -- 2,525,000
6. Shannon Shorr -- 1,130,000

Final Table
Action continued at level 26 with blinds at 60,000/120,000 and 15,000 ante. Shannon Shorr being on the short stack moved allin ferociously, trying to gain more chips to survive. He achived that when he won millions of chips from Scotty Nguyen after his pocket 10's overcame the pocket 6's that Scotty held. Scotty was reduced to less than 400K, and went out in 6th place after losing to the 9 kicker of Christian Harder when Scotty and Christian made a set of Aces by the river. Next in 5th was Shannon Shorr who lost to the pocket 4's of Yevgeniy Timoshenko.

The next bust was crazy as both Christian Harder (4th) and Bertrand Grospellier (3rd) went out on the same hand. In mega sized pot action, first Harder moved to the middle preflop with 1.9 million chips and was called by Ran Azor. Then Bertrand Grospellier went over the top with 2.79 million chips which was called by Azor as well. Players then showed their cards with Grospellier producing Ah Jh, Harder with As 8s and Azor with Ad 7s. The board fell as follows, Kd 7h 3d Qs 2c meaning the paired 7's of Azor busted both players leaving Azor with over 10 million in chips for the heads up.

Azor had exactly 10,435,000 chips to Timoshenko with 23,375,000 chips when the heads up began. Action had blinds at 120,000/240,000 and blinds at 20,000. On the first hand Azor lost a little over 3 million chips and it went downhill from there. Taking down blind after blind, after 50 hands Azor was under 5 million chips. Eventually the winning hand took place and went as follows, Azor raised to 800K and Timoshenko went allin and was called by Azor. Azor produced Q 10 and Timoshenko turned over A 3. The table showed Q J 7 on the flop, K on the turn and 10 on the river which gave Timoshenko a Broadway straight and the WPT championship title.

1. Yevgeniy Timoshenko -- $2,143,655 WPT Champion
2. Ran Azor -- $1,446,265
3. Bertrand Grospellier -- $776,245
4. Christian Harder -- $571,965
5. Shannon Shorr -- $408,550
6. Scotty Nguyen -- $285,985