The 2008 WSOP
The 2008 WSOP main event had 6,844 entries,
and took 11 days to get down to the final table
of 9. The new initiative in 2008 is to delay the
playing of final table for 4 months until
9th November 2008. The reasoning
behind this is that the hype can be created and
the story behind each player investigated and
publicised, to make the 2008 WSOP final table
the biggest event in poker history.
The following nine players will
return to Las Vegas on the 9th
November. Check back then to see how they get
on.
Seat 1: Dennis Phillips -
26,295,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis -
10,210,000
Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz -
12,525,000
Seat 4: Scott Montgomery -
19,690,000
Seat 5: Darus Suharto -
12,520,000
Seat 6: David 'Chino' Rheem -
10,230,000
Seat 7: Ivan Demidov -
24,400,000
Seat 8: Kelly Kim -
2,620,000
Seat 9: Peter Eastgate -
18,375,000
The experiment of delaying the
WSOP final table by 6 months had the desired
effect by attracting and loud and partisan crowd
of onlookers who added an incredible atmosphere
to the WSOP 2008 Final Table.
The final nine are shown above,
and last years winner Jerry Yang gets it going
with a "shuffle up and deal". Dennis Phillips
very quickly loses has cheap lead to Ivan
Demidov
with a
series of questionable calls.
Kelly Kim in the Short stack
starts well with barely 10 big blinds to his
name, he quickly doubles up when he finds pocket
Kings.
The first out is Craig Marquis,
he goes all in with pocket 7?s against Scott
Montgomery?s A-Q. Marquis flops a set, but Monty
hits runner-runner to make the broadway straight
and send Marquis out in ninth, and home with a
cheque for $900,000.
Kim is now guaranteed at least
$1,288,217 and wastes no time in going all in
with a pocket pair of fours, garnering calls
from three players, including Demidov and Darus
Suharto the latter of whom took the pot on a
9-6-2-A-Q board holding T-9 to outkick Demidov's
9-5. Kim was out in eighth.
Phillips, meanwhile, regains
some of his early luster, doubling through Chino
Rheem with queens against jacks, and then
doubling again through Ylon Schwartz after
pulling some ill-advised trickery with A-Q and
sucking out with a flopped ace against Schwartz'
pocket queens.
A few hands later, and the bad
beat experiences continue as Rheem goes all-in
with A K against Peter Eastgate?s A Q. The flop
brings a queen and Rheem was suddenly behind for
his tournament life. The turn and river bricked
and Chino Rheem was history, out in seventh
place and taking home $1,772,650 for his
time.
It wasn?t long before Darus
Suharto was next out, after an ill-advised
all-in shove with A 8 over the top of fellow
Canadian Scott Montgomery's opening raise and,
when Monty's A Q turned the nut flush, was out
in sixth place.
Suharto, who won his ticket into
the main event in an $80 PokerStars satellite,
claimed $2,418,562 in prize money on his way out
the door. Not a bad return on the
investment.
Then it was Scott Montgomery's
turn. The second Canadian at the final table,
Montgomery is a maniac at the tables, a ticking
time-bomb, and he exploded in epic fashion
shortly after Suharto made his exit. First,
Montgomery doubled up Ivan Demidov in a massive
pot after bluff-shoving with A 9 and seeing
Demidov call with kings.
Then, crippled, the Full Tilt
Poker pro shipped with A 3 and got a call from
Eastgate, who tabled pocket sixes. Aces on the
flop and turn gave Montgomery the advantage, and
after Phillips copped to folding one of the
remaining sixes, Montgomery needed only to fade
the one-outer to survive. He couldn't. The river
brought the case six and Monty was out the door,
in fifth place and earning $3,096,768 for his
efforts.
Action continued four-handed for
a stretch and then something weird happened.
People just started gifting Peter Eastgate their
chips under the most bizarre of
circumstances.
First, Ylon Schwartz shipped his
last $12.5 million on a K-8-2-K-5 river with
naught but ace-high. Eastgate, holding pocket
fives for the boat, had an easy call (although
he made it look difficult), and just like that
Schwartz was done, $3,774,974 richer and the
tournament's fourth-place
finisher.
A few hands later, Dennis
Phillips bluff-shoved his way to oblivion,
shipping for $15 million on a J 4 3 flop with T
9 and getting a snap call from Eastgate, who
with pocket treys had flopped bottom
set.
The hand was over by the turn
and Phillips' ten-high couldn't improve enough
to beat his rival, instead earning him a
third-place finish and a $4,517,773
reward.
And then there were two.
Eastgate and Ivan Demidov will return at 10 p.m.
on Monday evening to play out the battle, with
Eastgate holding $79,500,000 of the chips in
play and Demidov $57,225,000. Blinds are
$300,000/$600,000, so both players are extremely
deep-stacked so it could be a long
night.
Click here to find out what
happened WSOP 2008
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