2008 WSOP Event 9 No-Limit Hold’em / Six Handed

Individual Event Reports

Event #9 -- No-Limit Hold’em / Six Handed Day 1

A respectable 1,236 players turned out for Six Handed No Limit Hold'Em at the tables, which was less than the 1,427 seen in 2007. Each paid $1,500 to participate, creating a pool of $1,687,140 that will have payouts for the top 126 finishers. All players received 3,000 in starting chips and blinds will be 25/50. Eliminations of big names began when Erick Lindgren was busted just a few hands into play when he lost to another player who hit a full house (K's/2's). The magician Antonio Esfandiari couldn't get enough magic dust on his cards, when he asked another player if he wanted to gamble and pushed his stack to the center. The other player called and Antonio turned over A K, but the opponent showed A A and won the hand. Afterwards Antonio was left with an actual $25 chip and his chair, then went out on the next hand. They were followed by Hoyt Corkins, Steve Wong, Jerry Yang, Jamie Gold, John Juanda, Nam Le and J.J. Liu.

Six-Handed Hold’em emphasizes short-handed poker skills. Rather than a full table of nine players, each table is played six-handed (or less, as players bust out). This generally requires competitors to play cards out of the standard range of starting-hand requirements. It also makes post-flop skill paramount to victory. The game was included on the WSOP schedule as a concerted effort to measure as diverse a range of poker skills as possible.

With 71 players left after 12 hours of play, the goal for Day 2 will be to continue the tournament down to the final table. Here are the top 9 with chip counts for Day 1:

1. Matt Matros -- 156,600
2. Rep Porter -- 137,200
3. Thomas Fuller -- 110,200
4. Peter Marr -- 104,700
5. Avery Cardoza -- 99,300
6. Zachary Clark -- 94,000
7. William Mikolay -- 87,000
8. Jonas Danielsson -- 83,900
9. Tom Braband -- 82,700

Event #9 -- No-Limit Hold’em / Six Handed Day 2

Today should be a more balanced version because players have already broken the money bubble with the 71 that are here. Blinds will continue at 800/1600 with a 200 ante. Jared Hamby went to the rail when his pocket 6's improved to a set on the flop, but lost to the flush that the other player made on the river.

Also leaving the tournament were Matt Matros, Ryan Young who had his pocket A's cracked by another player holding pocket Q's, Barry Greenstein and Dave Zand. This was far shorter than the average day at the WSOP with the final table race ending at 11:00 pm which began at 2:00 pm.

1. John Conkright -- 1,100,000
2. Michiel Brummelhuis -- 740,000
3. Ralph Porter -- 660,000
4. Nathan Templeton -- 535,000
5. Devin Porter -- 375,000
6. Anatoly Shilyuk -- 350,000

Event #9 -- No-Limit Hold’em/Six Handed Final Table

Here is the final table reporting as given by the WSOP:

Three different nations were represented at the final table, including Canada, Holland, and the United States. Through the first nine events, every final table played thus far has included a multi-national flavor. Last year’s winner was Jason Warner. He entered this tournament but did not cash. One might have expected this to be a short final table, given the six-handed composition of the finale. However, Day Three clocked in at slightly over nine hours. The final table began at 2 pm and ended at 11:15 pm. When the final table began, John Conkright was the chip leader. He possessed about 27 percent of the total chips in play. Michael Brummelhuis was very close behind, in second place. Rep Porter ranked third.

When it came down to the head up, Rep Porter had a dominate position with 2,783,000 chips and Nathan Templeton had 925,000 chips. Blinds were at 15,000/30/000 with a 4,000 ante. The final hand went as follows, both players moved all-in preflop with Rep Porter showing K Q and Nathan Templeton having K 9. What came up on the felt was J 8 5 4 3, and Rep Porter who had been trying to win a WSOP gold bracelet for three years received one, winning the championship by a Queen kicker.

1. Rep Porter $372,843
2. Nathan Templeton $231,982
3. Devin Porter $151,843
4. John Conkright $101,228
5. Anatoly Shilyuk $70,860
6. Michiel Brummelhuis $53,314
7. David Zand $36,442
8. Kevin MacPhee $36,442
9. Andrew Fegan $28,007