Tournament Notes:
-- The $3,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournament attracted a highly-competitive field of 716 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $1,976,160. The top 72 finishers collected prize money.
-- The tournament was played over three consecutive days. The final table was played on Day Three at the same time as the conclusion of the $10,000 buy-in Limit Hold'em World Championship (Event #30). The finale took place at the secondary final table, as the main stage was reserved for the other event.
-- The winner was poker pro John Phan. He is 33-years-old and lives in Stockton, CA. Phan was born in Vietnam. He has been playing poker professionally for about 12 years.
-- Phan collected $434,789 for first place. He also earned his first WSOP gold bracelet. Prior to this victory, Phan had two runner-up finishes in WSOP events in 2006 and 2007. He also finished fourth in an event in 2005.
-- Phan's heads-up match against Johnny Neckar clocked in at 6 hours and 13 minutes, which certainly ranks as one of the longer matches in WSOP history. However, this did not come close to threatening the all-time record set in 2006 between Chip Reese and Andy Bloch, which lasted over eight hours. The entire final table took slightly over ten hours to complete.
-- The Phan-Neckar back and forth heads-up match led to one of the most bizarre occurrences in WSOP history. Just when both players had been playing for six hours and that fact was announced to the crowd, both finalists decided to raise all-in blindly before the flop and let luck takes its course. Phan and Neckar did this for three straight hands. However, some sanity was restored and just as hundreds of screaming fans had ringed around the final table arena hollering out names and cards, both players resumed normal patterns of play with the duel locked into a dead heat in chips. Half a dozen hands later, Phan finally won the tournament.
-- Afterward, Phan was almost dismissive of the significance of his victory. Although he had finally won a WSOP gold bracelet after coming close several times, he stated that he one and only goal in poker remains to win the WSOP Main Event. Oddly enough, while Phan was trying to explain himself, he had a bracelet affixed to his wrist from another poker tournament which was awarded to him for winning a major tournament at the Jack Binion World Poker Open in 2007.
-- Phan later explained his odd decision to "gamble" for the gold bracelet (moving all-in dark on three hands) by saying, "What can I say? I love to gamble. To me, gambling is what it's all about."
-- A more serious side of Phan's personality came out later when he revealed that he intends to donate some of his cash prize to charity, and specifically the hometown in Vietnam where he still has relatives.
-- The second-place finisher was 22-year-old Johnny Neckar, from Madison, WI. This was his second time to cash at the WSOP.
-- David Singer's bid to win his second WSOP gold bracelet came up short. He took fifth place in this event. Singer won the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em championship (Event #3).
-- Sebastian Segovia finished in ninth place. Segovia is from Guatemala. This marked the first time in WSOP history that a player from that Central American nation has made it to the final table.
-- Don "Final Table" Mullis took 16th place. Mullis enjoyed a stellar year in 2005, particularly on the WSOP Circuit where he made eight final table appearances within an eight-month span and won two gold rings at the Tunica Grand and Harvey's Lake Tahoe.
-- Former WSOP gold bracelet winner Ryan Young finished in 17th place.
-- This tournament was historic in at least one special way. Betty Carey played in this tournament and cashed. Carey is a near-legendary figure amongst many of the older poker rounders. She was once called "the best woman player in the world" by "Amarillo Slim" Preston. During poker's earlier days, she was bankrolled by outlaw Jimmy Chagra and played amongst (and often beat) the best players in the world in high-limit cash games. Carey finished 36th in this event. Her last time to cash at the WSOP was way back in 1986. Therefore, her 22-year-span between WSOP cashes is believed to be an all-time record.
-- Former WSOP gold bracelet winner Kathy Liebert finished 39th. This marked her fifth cash at this year's WSOP.
-- Beth Shak finished 52nd. Shak almost won this same event last year. She finished second to winner Shankar Pillai.
-- Beth Shak's husband, Daniel Shak, is building quite a poker resume of his own. Shak was a co-winner of the 2007 "Ante-Up For Africa" tournament for charity and donated his entire $243,893 cash prize to the charity. Sometimes, good things happen to good people. Mr. Shak took 70th place in this tournament.
-- Since both Shaks cashed, this marked the first time that a husband and wife have cashed in the same tournament at this year's World Series. In the past, this has been accomplished by the Sterns (Max and Maria) and the Thomas' (Harry and Jerri).
-- The curse on defending champions continues. Last year's winner, Shankar Pillai played in this event. But he did not cash. This brings the current streak to 29 straight non-cashes for defending champions in their respective events.
-- Through the conclusion of Event #29, the player with the highest percentage of cashes (minimum of six events played) is Kathy Liebert at 62.5 percent. Liebert has entered a total of eight events and cashed in five.
-- Through the conclusion of Event #29, only one player has cashed six times Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow, Russia. He is best positioned to challenge the record set for "Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year," shared by four players -- Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth, Jr. (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006), with eight in-the-money strikes.
-- The current Milwaukee's Best Light "Player of the Year" standings shows Erick Lindgren on top of the points list with one gold bracelet win and four cashes. However, Daniel Negreanu is now close in points, along with Vanessa Selbst and Jacobo Fernandez.
