Events 1 to 5 | 6 to 10 | 11 to 15 | 16 to 20 | 26 to 30 | 31 to 35 | 36 to 40 | 41 to 45

2006 World Series of Poker
Events 21 to 25

Event #21 July 13 -- No-Limit Hold'Em Short handed (6/table)
Buyin: $2,500.00
A pool of $1,702,000 cash prize was the result of 740 players entering this tournament. Payouts went to the top 72. A number of players had great finishes on the day like Mike Guttman (125,200 chips), Bill Chen (101,700 chips), Corey Cheresnick (84,000) and Harry Demetriou (58,200). 38 players were left to go on to the next round.

Play on Day 2 slowed a bit as no one wanted to face elimination. Unfortunately, a number of top players had to hit the rail like Kenna James, Joe Beevers, Phil Gordon and Gregg Merkow. By the time 9:45 p.m. came around, the final table players had been determined.

On the third day, let's just say it was the Bill Chen show. The final table took close to 4 hours to finish and once the heads up between Bill Chen and Nath Pizzolatto started, it was over in 2 hands! This is what went on between the two players on the last hand. Nath limped in and Chen raised 25,000. Nath calls the raise and the flop is Jc 7s 5s. Chen bet 40,000 and is instantly called by Nath. Turn card is 10h and both players check. River card is 9d and Chen bets 70,000. Nath raises 200,000 and Chen immediately goes all in. Nath calls and produces 6 8 for a straight, but Chen shows Kc Qd for a bigger straight and wins his second gold bracelet at the 2006 World Series of Poker.

1. Bill Chen -- $442,511
2. Nath Pizzolatto -- $238,280
3. Mike Guttman -- $139,564
4. Dan Hicks -- $107,226
5. Alex Bolotin -- $78,292
6. Harry Demetriou -- $58,719

Event #22 July 14 -- No-Limit Hold'Em
Buyin: $2,000.00
1,579 players came to Event #22 to try and grab a slice of a healthy $2,873,780 prize pool. 156 of them will be fortunate enough to receive something as the payout schedule provides for that many winners. Day 1 saw the field thinned to 101 contestants that would move on to the next level. The outstanding players who had good results this round include Cory Ward (114,200 chips), Jeff Madsen (89,900 chips), Reza Payvar (69,100 chips) and Anthony Tamborello (86,800 chips). Others such as Hung La, Brian Mogelefsky, Walter Chambers, Tom Franklin, Jason Stern and Alex Brenes would also be part of the group to play tomorrow.

Julian Gardner had a nice start by winning a 3 way all in pot 10 min into Day 2, eliminating one player and leaving the other with only $500 in chips. His luck continued allowing him to see the final table as chip leader. Paul Sheng (569,000 chips) and Troy Parkins (451,000 chips) took out other players from the tables increasing their chip counts and allowing them seats at the final table as well. By 1:25 a.m. on July 16th the 9 for the championship battle were named.

At the final table John Shipley went out in the first 5 min of play courtesy of Paul Sheng. He was soon followed less than 30 min later by Billy Duarte Jr. Michael Chow lost a hand to Troy Parkins, leaving in 7th. Not too many challenges came for Julian Gardner and Bob Bright as a lot of their hands went uncontested, allowing them to pick up a number of pots. But eventually Bob Bright (6th) left the table with help from Gardner, followed by Robert Cohen (5th) less than 10 min later. From that point players were cautious with their hands, but it soon came to just Jeff Madsen and Paul Sheng for the heads up. The last hand that won it for Jeff Madsen looked like this. Paul Sheng limped in and Jeff decided to check with the flop being 10d 9d 8c. Jeff bet 35,000 and Paul responded with a 125,000 re raise. Jeff countered with a re raise of 300,000 of which Paul called. Turn card is a 6s and Jeff checks. Paul went all in and Jeff immediately called as he produced Jc 7c for a Jack high straight. Paul's hand consisted of As 7d for a lower straight. The river card 6c helped neither player so Jeff Madsen gets the win, over $600,000 for the biggest slice of the pie and a gold bracelet to go with it!

1. Jeff Madsen -- $660,948
2. Paul Sheng -- $330,485
3. Julian Gardner -- $172,427
4. Troy Parkins -- $132,194
5. Robert Cohen -- $112,077
6. Robert Bright -- $94,835
7. Michael Chow -- $83,340
8. Billy Duarte Jr. -- $71,845
9. John Shipley -- $60,349

Event #23 July 15 -- Limit Hold'Em
Buyin: $3,000.00
The prize pool was $941,160 with 341 entries and payouts went to the top 37 finishers. A number of players were seen going back and forth between this event and the Omaha Hi-Low Split event, so it was hard to see who was travelling and who was eliminated. Some were verified as "busted" such as J.J. Liu, John Phan, Barry Shulman, David Plastik, David Williams, Kenna James and Gavin Smith. And 80 year old Kuei "Mama" Chang busted out Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi.

35 moved on to Day 2 and because of the low number, it only took 5 1/2 hours to reach the 9 for the final table. There was lots of action on Day 3 as some players hit hot hands, tripling up in the process. Theo Tran asked for help from the "poker gods", and got it as he started with only 74,000 in chips but held on to go out in 4th place. Jerrod Ankenmen never seemed to lose his stride and his chips continued to build regardless of what was happening around him. Unfortunately his luck changed when he went heads up against Ian Johns. Ian began with the battle with less than 100k in chips, and continued to win hand after hand against Jerrod. And yes Ian did win the Limit Hold'Em championship and the gold bracelet that goes with it.

Here is the last hand summary. Ian raised before the flop and Jerrod calls. 9s 5c 2h materialized on the flop. Ian bets and again Jerrod calls. Turn card is a 3c. Ian then check/raises Jerrod, then both watch as the river card is a Ah. Ian puts Jerrod all in, Jerrod calls and doesn't even show his cards when Ian produces As 3d which gave Ian the win.

1. Ian Johns -- $291,755
2. Jerrod Ankenmen -- $150,586
3. Javier Torresola --$75,293
4. Theo Tran -- $65,881
5. Mark Newhouse -- $56,470
6. Tad Jurgens -- $47,058
7. Brendan Taylor -- $37,646
8. Ben Robinson -- $28,235
9. Fi Tran -- $18,823

Event #24 July 15 -- Omaha Hi-Low Split
Buyin: $3,000.00
If you love to see lots of big name poker stars, this event was for you. 352 players came to the tables which included names like John Juanda, Greg Raymer, Erick Lindgren, Jean-Robert Bellande, Scotty Nguyen, Amir Vahedi, Todd Brunson, Mike Sexton, Jennifer Harman, Brett Jungblutt, Max Pescatori, Josh Arieh, Chris Ferguson, Chau Giang and Daniel Negreanu. Prize pool size came to reach $971,520 with payouts going to the top 36 players. Erick Lindgren was busy running back and forth as he is playing in both this event and the Limit Hold'Em which is taking place at the same time. In a post H.O.R.S.E. positive, when Steve Zolotow and Rafi Amit asked for new cards because they were worried about marked card, the tournament director immediately replaced them. And Day 1 ends with 47 players moving to the next round.

Day 2 started at 2:00 p.m. and the field began narrowing quickly with Jean-Robert Bellande being eliminated by Allen Cunningham. Bellande was followed by James Van Alstyne, Mark Gregorich, Rafi Amit, Chris Reslock, Kirill Gerasimov, Huck Seed and Chad Brown. July 16th is Phil Hellmuth's birthday but the only open gift he received was when tournament officials gave him a 10-min penalty after he dropped the dreaded "f-bomb" when he lost a particular hand. (He also made the final table too.) Close to midnight the final table players were named and Day 2 came to an end.

From the start, players seemed pretty relaxed playing with the blinds at $3,000 to $6,000 with the average chip stack being 117,111 in size. The blinds increased at a fast clip, resulting with all ins with players going out of the tournament. When the heads up battle came to a climax, Scott Clements became the winner. Here is what took place. Thor Hansen went all in (Jd 5d 4h 2h) on the button and was called by Scott (10d 9s 6s 5s). The board showed 8s 4c 2s 7s 3d giving Scott a flush for the high and a straight for the low. He received a gold bracelet and $301,175 for his efforts.

1. Scott Clements -- $301,175
2. Thor Hansen -- $155,443
3. Brent Carter -- $77,722
4. Martin Corpuz -- $68,006
5. Ronald Matsuura -- $58,291
6. Phil Hellmuth -- $48,576
7. Peter Costa -- $38,861
8. Steve Ladowsky -- $29,146
9. Alex Limjoco -- $19,430

1. David Pham -- $240,222
2. Charlie Sewell -- $124,488
3. Roland De Wolfe -- $65,520
4. Jerald Williamson -- $49,140
5. Chad Layne -- $43,680
6. Jason Dewitt -- $38,220
7. David Bach -- $32,760
8. Dustin Woolf -- $27,300
9. Adam Kagin -- $21,840
10. Jeffrey Heiberg -- $16,380