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2007 WSOP Results
Events 1 to 5

Event #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5

Event #1 June 1 Friday 12 Noon
World Championship Mixed Hold'em (Limit/No-Limit) 3 Day event $5,000.00

Day 1 saw 451 players which entered the first event that will compete for a share of a $2,119,700 prize pool with cash going to the top 45. With this event, the Limit and No Limit will switch every 30 min. A huge amount of top talent were here for the kickoff event. Seen were David "Devilfish" Ulliot, Freddy Deeb, Chad Brown, Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Phil Gordon, J.J. Liu, Mark Seif, Rene Angelil, Dewey Tomko, David Grey, John Hennigan and Greg Raymer. Things began once 2006 Main Event champion Jamie Gold announced, "Shuffle up and deal!". Action was fast and furious leaving 95 players for day 2. At the end of Day One, there are 19 former gold bracelet winners still in contention, with 95 players remaining. Only one former world champion remains, Johnny Chan (1987 and 1988 champ). He is trying for an 11th win and bracelet in this event, but he is low on chips. Six women still remain in the field. Currently ranked third in chips is Sabyl Cohen. She was the highest female finisher in the 2006 Main Event, last year finishing 56th. The current chip leader is Greg Mueller. This particular Canadian poker player has cashed seven times at the World Series of Poker. His best showing was 7th in 2005.

Day 2 saw the 95 reduced to 9. Johnny Chan will have to play in another event for the 11th bracelet as he was eliminated in 31st place. Greg Mueller Day 1 chip leader is still in the game being 3rd in chips at the final table. The only bracelet holder at the table will be Fred Berger who won the Pot Limit Hold'Em event in 2002. But with the power and experience of the other players, he will have to work hard to earn another bracelet.

On day 3 the final table began with Limit Hold'Em with blinds at $15,000/$30,000 having $30,000/$60,000 limits. On the first hand with ESPN cameras everywhere, John Younger busted out in 9th place ($33,915). His A Q could not overcome the A K of Fred Berger. About an hour later, the game changes to No Limit with $10,000/$20,000 blinds and Jon Turner goes in 8th Place ($46,663) after his A K ran into Berger's pocket Q's with no help from the table. After another hour we are back to Limit with blinds of $20,000/$40,000 with limits of $40,000/$80,000. In this round Kirk Morrison goes in 7th ($63,591), and Roger McDow bows out in 6th ($84,788). Fred Berger is eliminated in 5th ($108,105), after his Ad 2c lost to Billirakis's Ah Jh. Steve Paul-Ambrose leaves in 4th Place ($146,259) when his Js 8d ran into a set of Aces held by Billirakis. Tony George claims 3rd ($218,329), when the pocket 5's he had were not enough to beat the straight held by Greg Mueller.

After 2 hrs and 15 min of heads up play, the last hand of the tournament came up. Both Billirakis (Ks 2d) and Mueller (5d 4d) go all-in pre flop. Board shows Qh Jd 2s 8h Qs. And with that Steve Billirakis at 21 years and 10 days of age becomes the youngest person to win a gold bracelet, beating the record set by Jeff Madsen last year!

Final Table finishes:

1. Steve Billirakis -- $536,287
2. Greg Mueller -- $328,554
3. Tony George -- $218,329
4. Steve Ambrose -- $146,259
5. Fred Berger -- $108,105
6. Roger McDow -- $84,788
7. Kirk Morrison -- $63,591
8. Jon Turner -- $46,663
9. John Younger -- $33,915

Event #2 June 1 Friday 5:00 PM
Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em 2 day event $500.00

There were 1,039 casino employees which entered this event, trying to grab a piece of a $467,500 pool. Cash went to the top 100 finishers. The field was narrowed quickly on Day 1 to 141 players. The next day was a marathon as the 141 players continued to play not just down to the final table, but to the winner which took 14 hours. Frederick Narciso was named champion of the casino employees at 6:00 a.m. the following day, and became the first player to pick up a gold championship bracelet! In last year's casino tournament he placed 27th and for being only 24 years old you have to admit that this dealer knows his game!

Here are the final table finishes:

1. Frederick Narciso -- $104,701.00
2. Charles Fisher -- $66,392.00
3. Eugene Lang -- $42,547.00
4. Chris Chau -- $28,053.00
5. Kevin Kalthoff -- $19,637.00
6. David Dietrfch -- $14,962.00
7. Meaghan Larivee -- $11,221.00
8. John Konich -- $8,182.00
9. Eric Schutzberg -- $5,844.00

Event #3 June 2 Saturday 12 Noon
No-Limit Hold�em 3 day event $1,500.00

Day 1 for this tournament has broken all World Series of Poker attendance records for a non-Main Event tournament with 2,998 players entering. A whopping total prize pool amount of $4,497,000 was created as a result with cash going to the top 308. The start was delayed for almost 2 hours due to the incredible amounts of players being managed from Events #1, #2 and #3, resulting in an outdoor tent being set up for tournament players to play in. Last year's champion Brandon Cantu was in the field as well as Jamie Gold, Mike Matusow, Shannon Elizabeth, David Pham, William Chen, Robert Mizrachi, Jean Gaspard, Daniel Negreanu and Jeff Madsen. Eliminations happened by the droves as the field was cut to 270. Notables remaining were Main Event champions Greg Raymer (2004) in 59th and Chris Moneymaker (2003) in 110th, Jose Rosenkrantz, Eric Mizrachi and Michael Binger.

Day 2 was highly active with the 270 players continuing at the tables until the final table is reached. Which was good for them as the payout schedule was released, showing these 270 would be paid for their efforts. The day began at 2:00 p.m. PDT with short stacks going all-in left and right. The tournament was stopped as so many were busting out, officials couldn't keep up in order to pay them correctly! It took so long to sort out that many did not hold back at criticizing the entire management of this years World Series of Poker. Chris Moneymaker was among the early eliminations as his A 8 all-in was crushed by another players 10 high straight. He was followed by Greg Raymer, Erick Lindgren, Mark Seif, Amir Vahedi, Eric Mizrachi and many others. Whew! But with the strength of Atlas, Alex Jacob grew his stack from yesterdays 189,400 to todays 3,100,000, making him the monster force at the final table. Jeff Yoak saw his chips grow from 144,800 to 1,690,000 as well. At 4:40 a.m. the party was stopped and the final table players bagged their chips for tomorrow.

Final table action was short as players sat down at 3:30 p.m. PDT to see who the next champion would be. First casualty was Matthew Vengrin after his A J lost out to Alex Jacob's K Q once the board gave Alex another Q, leaving Matthew in a 9th place finish. Three hands later, Bart Hanson was eliminated courtesy of Andreas Krause who had a boat with 4's/Q's. Thad Smith also was a victim of a full house produced by Craig Crivello and earned a 7th place finish. Then Andreas Krause went out in 6th after his paired Kings lost to the paired Aces of Paul Evans. Craig Crivello was gone in 5th, Paul Yoak in 4th and Alex Jacob in 3rd after they all lost hands to Ciaran O�Leary.

Heads up action was done by the second hand at 8:05 p.m. Evans limped and O�Leary checked with both seeing a flop of Kh 2c 6s. O'Leary checked, Evans raised and O'Leary moved all-in (Kc 10d) and was called by Evans (6s 3s). Turn and river cards were Ks 9d making Ciaran O'Leary a World Series of Poker champion and gold bracelet holder!

Finishes for final table:

1. Ciaran O'Leary -- $727,012
2. Paul Evans -- $450,150
3. Alex Jacob -- $282,367
4. Jeffrey Yoak -- $184,152
5. Craig Crivello -- $128,907
6. Andreas Krause -- $94,122
7. Thad Smith -- $73,661
8. Bart Hanson -- $55,246
9. Matthew Vengrin -- $43,378

Event #4 June 3 Sunday 12 Noon
Pot Limit Hold'em 3 day event $1,500.00

There were 780 players to sign up for the fourth event at the RIO. First place will pay $252,290 to the winner. In the field were seen defending champion Rafe Furst, actor and poker players James Woods and Shannon Elizabeth, Erik Seidel, T.J. Cloutier, Amnon Filippi, David "Devilfish" Ulliot, Chip Jett, Lee Watkinson, John Phan, Jamie Gold, Freddy Deeb and Phil Hellmuth Jr. Day 1 saw plenty of action as many top names dropped like flies from the tables. Phil Hellmuth Jr. became a Day 1 casualty when his A K was capsized by another player's pocket J's. He was followed by Erik Seidel, Nam Le, David Ulliot, defending champion Rafe Furst when his pocket 9's lost to another players pocket J's and Tony Ma. By the time 2:00 a.m. the next day came, there were 51 remaining for Day 2.

On Day 2, it took about 8 hours to determine the final table players. Action moved quickly as 11 players were eliminated in the first hour. Among the fallen were Jean-Robert Bellande, Freddy Deeb, Nick Binger, Shane Beckham and Eugene Todd. By the time 10:00 p.m. came around, Gavin Smith had busted John McCarthy out in 10th place securing 9 players for the championship bout.

Day 3 final table action began at 3:15 p.m. PDT to see who would earn the gold and diamond bracelet for becoming champion of this event. First warrior down for a 9th place finish was Marco Traniello after his Ac Kc could not overpower the pocket J's of Gavin Smith. Jeff Langdon busted in 8th place and Eric Lynch left in 7th place, both victims of Gavin Smith. Bruce Vanhorn was eliminated in 6th when he lost to the Ace high hand of Jon Friedberg. Tom Savitsky was eliminated in 5th Place after losing to the set of 9's held by William Hill. Then William Hill went out in 4th when he was outdone by the pair of J's held by Mike Spegal. And 3rd position was given to Jon Friedberg after he came out the loser in a 3 way hand involving Gavin Smith and Mike Spegal.

The heads up match started with both players close in chips, Mike Spegal with 1,245,000 and Gavin Smith with 1,105,000. Throughout the hands, Smith had his chip stack going like a roller coaster with more downs than ups. Then Smith decided to move all-in preflop (5 5) and Spegal called it (As 10s). Table showed Jd 6s 3s Qs Kd, giving an Ace high flush to Spegal entitling him to the gold bracelet of champions.

Final table finishes:

1. Mike Spegal -- $252,290
2. Gavin Smith -- $155,645
3. Jon Friedberg -- $101,276
4. William Hill -- $67,162
5. Tom Savitsky -- $47,973
6. Bruce Vanhorn -- $36,779
7. Eric Lynch -- $27,718
8. Jeff Langdon -- $20,255
9. Marco Traniello -- $14,925

Event #5 June 3 Sunday 5:00 PM
Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better 3 day event $2,500.00

Whoever was not playing Event #4 Pot Limit Hold'em, came here to play Omaha/Stud. There were 327 who entered the tournament with cash going to the top 32. The pool size reached $817,500. In this event, the beginning level of play will be Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split (Eight or Better). 30 minutes later, the switch to Omaha Hi-Low Split (Eight or Better) will happen with the same limits as what was being played on Stud. At the tables were Pat Poels, Johnny Chan, Hassan Habib, Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, Harry Demetriou, Andy Bloch and John Juanda. And it was good big names were there as some of the dealers had to be walked through splitting the pots in both games. (Lack of experience with the dealers has been a big complaint so far this tournament series.) By 3:00 a.m. level 16 was reached and play ended for the day. 88 players will move on to the next round at 3 p.m. June 4.

Day 2 still had dealer problems as one table not only had one player receive 8 cards, but ended up playing the wrong level ante and blind for a few levels. Not good. But the tournament went on and so did the eliminations that go with it. Those sent to the rail include Paul Darden, John Cernuto, Jason Strasser, Greg Raymer, Hasan Habib, Chau Giang, Jennifer Harman, Cyndy Violette and Mel Judah. When the smoke cleared, the tournament had a killer final table of 8 players which included Chris Ferguson, Annie Duke, Tom Schneider, David Benyamine and John Phan.

The final table began with limit Omaha at $8,000/$16,000 blinds. First to go in 8th was John Phan courtesy of Annie Duke. Joesph Bolnick went in 7th thanks to the superior hand of Ed Tonnellier. David Benyamine was eliminated in 6th and Chris Bell in 5th, both by Tom Schneider. Chris Ferguson was eliminated in 4th place. And Annie Duke left in 3rd from the hand of Ed Tonnellier after a previous hand with Ed crippled her stack.

Heads up lasted just a few hands between Tom Schneider (1,100,000 chips) and Ed Tonnellier (620,000 chips). Schneider went to work fast quickly bringing Tonnellier down to just 3 - $1000 chips. Tonnellier did fight back raising his stack back up to five figures, but in the last all-in for both players, Schneider brought the competition to an end when his full house A's/4's established him as a World Series of Poker tournament champion.

Final table finishes:

1. Tom Schneider -- $214,347
2. Ed Tonnellier -- $118,456
3. Annie Duke -- $75,391
4. Chris Ferguson -- $50,391
5. Chris Bell -- $39,109
6. David Benyamine -- $22,939
7. Joesph Bolnick -- $16,922
8. John Phan -- $11,658