2008 WSOP Event 7 No-Limit Hold’em

Individual Event Reports

Event #7 -- No-Limit Hold’em Day 1

There were 1592 players that signed up for No Limit Hold'Em at the WSOP. The $2000.00 buyin resulted in a $2,897,440 prize pool, of which the champion will receive $550,529 for their efforts. Money will go to the top 153 players in the tournament. Many of the big names who did not opt for the mind numbing chaos of Event 8 with the biggest mixture of types of poker ever, took a seat here in this event. In the field were Justin Bonomo, Jerry Yang, Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Shannon Shorr, T.J. Cloutier, John Cernuto, Carlos Mortensen, Amir Vahedi and Erica Schoenberg.

Eliminations and bad beats can be counted on in a field this size. Amnon Filippi went out on the first level of action. Added to the list of the fallen were Jamie Gold, T.J. Cloutier, Chad Batista who was sent to the rail after losing by a J kicker, Bill Edler, Layne Flack, Kathy Liebert, Danny Wong and Mark Seif. Main Event champion Jerry Yang got busted by the Cowboys (KK) of J.C. Tran. At the end of the day, there were 152 players left for Day 2:

1. Theo Tran -- 145,800
2. Nick Romano -- 126,500
3. Scott Montgomery -- 117,100
4. John Myung -- 106,800
5. Rocco Pace -- 106,000
6. Thong Tran -- 105,800
7. Pawel Andrzejewski -- 98,100
8. J.C. Tran -- 93,200
9. Robert Morgan -- 90,700

Event #7 -- No-Limit Hold’em Day 2

Action continued with blinds at 800/1600 with a 200 ante. For future reference, the WSOP is not allowing players to wear headphones when the field has reached the money. Eliminations include Aaron Kanter, Thomas Keller, Fred Goldberg, Marcel Luske and Mike Sexton both sent to the rail by Sam Farha and Manny Minaya who was busted by Theo Tran in 10th place.

One incredibly wild bad beat took place on Day 2. Here is the WSOP summary on what happened:

Bad Beat Story of the Year: This one is worth telling (and listening to). Down to three tables and 24 players on Day Two, Theo Tran was heads-up in a pot with Scott Montgomery. Tran was dealt A-A against Montgomery’s 5-5. Incredibly, Montgomery flopped quad-fives, yet still ended up losing the hand. The flop came 5-5-4 with two spades. The turn brought the deuce of spades. The river delivered the three-of-spades, giving Tran a straight flush (A-2-3-4-5) with the ace-of-spades in his hand. Perhaps most incredible of all – Montgomery did not go broke on the hand. Tran bet the river for a modest number of chips, and Montgomery could only make the call (instead of raising), despite having four-of-a-kind.

These are the 9 for the final table:

1. Theo Tran -- 1,884,000
2. Mihai Manole -- 1,020,000
3. Matt Keikoan -- 1,011,000
4. Carter Gill -- 652,000
5. Shannon Shorr -- 627,000
6. Mike Lisante -- 358,000
7. Alex Bolotin -- 345,000
8. J.C. Tran -- 273,000
9. Chris Bjorin -- 205,000

Event #7 -- No-Limit Hold’em Final Table

After multiple final tables which lasted past midnight, this finale concluded in a lightning-fast 6 hours and 20 minutes. This was the shortest final table of year, thus far. Due to time restraints, we will post the final hand of this event.

Matt Keikoan has 5,600,000 chips to Shannon Shorr who had 800,000. On the last hand, both parties pushed their chips to the middle. Matt had K 5 and Shannon had 10 6 as they prepared for the flop. What hit the felt was K 7 7 Q K, and without question a full house made Matt Keikoan the champion and newest wearer of the coveted gold WSOP bracelet.

1. Matt Keikoan $550,529
2. Shannon Shorr $349,142
3. Carter Gill $228,898
4. Theo Tran $191,231
5. Chris Bjorin $155,013
6. Mihai Manole $123,141
7. J. C. Tran $94,167
8. Alex Bolotin $72,436
9. Mike Lisanti $50,705