Tournament Notes:
-- The $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em championship attracted another huge field as 2,304 entries created a prize pool totaling $3,144,960. The top 198 finishers collected prize money.
-- This is the third of seven $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em tournaments on the 2008 WSOP schedule. This game and buy-in level has consistently proven to be the most popular draw on the schedule in recent years, aside from the Main Event.
-- An alternative lower buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournament (less than $10,000) has been included as part of the WSOP schedule every year since 1973. Over the years, these buy-in amounts have ranged from $1,000 up to $5,000. However, more $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournaments have now taken place at the WSOP over the past 39-years than any other event.
-- The tournament was played over three consecutive days. The final table was played on the ESPN main stage and was broadcast by Bluff Media on ESPN360. The Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split World Championship also concluded on this day, which was played at the secondary final table.
-- The curse continues. Last year's champion, David Stucke played in this event. But he did not cash. This brings the current streak to 32 straight non-cashes for defending champions in their respective events.
-- The winner was Luis Velador, from Lake Elsinore, CA. He is a 44-year-old professional poker player. Velador has been playing professionally for 11 years.
-- Velador was born in Mexico. He is one of the few Mexican-born winners in WSOP history. Victor Perches became the first ever to win in 2006.
-- Velador has sometimes been listed at other poker tournaments as "Jose-Luis Velador." However, he prefers to be known as Luis Velador.
-- Velador collected $574,734 for first place. He also earned his first WSOP gold bracelet. Velador has only played in three WSOP events. He has cashed in all three. In fact, Velador played in the 2006 and 2007 Main Events, and cashed both times!
-- Prior to becoming a poker pro, Velador was a tile setter.
-- Velador concentrates mostly on middle-limit cash games, ranging from $10-20 up to $40-80 limits. He prefers mixed games. He has played daily at the Bicycle Club Casino in the past but now plays mostly at the Commerce Casino, in Los Angeles.
-- Velador's performance was as dominant as has been seen by any player at this year's WSOP, to date. From start to finish during the five-hour final table, Velador held at least a 2 to 1 chip advantage over his nearest adversary. Most of the time, he had every opponent at the table covered by a 5 or 6 to 1 margin.
-- "There is lot of dead money in these tournaments," Velador said. "Sure, there are many good players, too. But these (lower buy-in tournaments) are not like the big ones where all you see is pros."
-- "I got hit by the deck yesterday," Velador stated in reference to his dominance during the last half of the tournament.
-- The second-place finisher was Anthony Signore, from Boynton Beach, FL. Amazingly, this was Signore's first time to enter a major poker tournament. He collected $366,387.
-- Prior to this event, a player from every U.S. state had recorded at least one cash at this year's WSOP except Vermont. With Hyde Park, VT resident Shane Stacey's fifth place finish, all states have now sent at least one player to the Rio payout window. In addition, 37 different nations have also been represented amongst the in-the-money finishers.
-- Justin Hoffman, who was playing in his first WSOP event ever, finished in ninth place. He was a cryptologist on active duty for the U.S. Navy from 1991-97. He now owns a production company that produces music festivals in Georgia.
-- Michael Banducci, who won his first gold bracelet earlier in the $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em championship (Event #5) cashed for the third time this year, taking 70th place.
-- Eleven-time WSOP gold bracelet winner and 1989 world poker champion Phil Hellmuth recorded his 65th career WSOP cash by finishing 71st in this event. Hellmuth continues to distance himself from the competition, as second-place Men "the Master" Nguyen is now eight cashes behind Hellmuth, with 57 to his credit.
-- Former WSOP gold bracelet winner Justin Scott also cashed, finishing in 132nd place.
-- Through the conclusion of Event #32, 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 and Barry Greenstein are now close behind.
-- Through Event #32, the player who has entered the most WSOP events is Tom McCormick, a.k.a. "The Shamrock Kid" with 23 entries.
-- Through Event #32, fourteen players have made two WSOP final table appearances this year. This list includes Chris Bjorin, Andy Bloch, Alex Bolotin, David Benyamine, Scott Clements, Jacobo Fernandez, Fu Wong, Barry Greenstein, Erick Lindgren, Minh Ly, Daniel Negreanu, David Singer, J.C. Tran, and Theo Tran.
- Through the conclusion of Event #32 at this year's World Series of Poker, the gold bracelet count by nations and states reads as follows:
8 Nevada
6 California
4 New York
2 Canada
2 Italy
2 Missouri
1 Germany
1 Holland
1 Maryland
1 Michigan
1 Pennsylvania
1 Russia
1 South Carolina
1 Wisconsin
-- So far, this WSOP has been deemed "The Year of the Pro." Professional poker players have reasserted their dominance in tournament play by winning a vast majority of gold bracelets (77 percent), especially over the first half of the schedule. However, it is important to note that amateur poker players have dominated WSOP tournaments since 2005. Here is the Pro-Am Scoreboard each year since 2000 (Note: The Casino Employees Event is not counted):
2000 Pros 14 to Amateurs 8
2001 Pros 18 to Amateurs 7
2002 Pros 18 to Amateurs 16
2003 Pros 24 to Amateurs 12
2004 Pros 21 to Amateurs 11
2005 Amateurs 26 to Pros 18
2006 Amateurs 27 to Pros 17
2007 Amateurs 34 to Pros 20
2008 (through Event #32) Pros 25 to Amateurs 7
-- Since 2000, pros currently lead amateurs in the Pro-Am gold bracelet race by a margin of 175 to 148.
-- It should be noted that the largest influx of new poker players to the WSOP took place during the period when amateurs won a majority of events. There are contrasting interpretations of what this data means. Some suggest the larger number of amateurs playing at the WSOP inflates their winning percentages by sheer volume. Others (most pros) point out that the WSOP has the best tournament structures of any poker event in the world and that professionals have a much greater opportunity to prove their superior skill under this format.
-- One additional factor which has bolstered the performance of pros this year is the inclusion of two events on most days. The daily 12 noon events tend to attract a greater concentration of amateur players, whereas the higher-buy-in 5:00 pm events attract smaller, but more highly-accomplished fields, with more professionals.
-- The Event #32 winner Luis Velador is to be classified as a professional, since he has been playing for a living for more than a decade. Accordingly, through the conclusion of Event #32 at this year's World Series of Poker, the "Pro-Am" gold bracelet scoreboard reads:
Professionals 25 wins
Amateurs -- 5 wins
Semi-Pros -- 2 wins
-- Through Event #32, the End of Day One chip leaders have gone on to cash 80 percent of the time -- 24 of 30 occasions (the chip leader was not applicable on two events). Eight of these same 30 chip leaders (26 percent) made it to the final table. Only one chip leader went on to win the event (3 percent). That lone wire-to-wire winner was Vanessa Selbst in Event #19.
-- Through Event #31, twelve of 30 chip leaders at the start of the final table (40 percent) went on to win the event. Nineteen of 30 chip leaders (63 percent) went on to finish in the top three spots. Two events did not have a chip leader (Heads-Up and the Shootout).
-- CORRECTION: This will address a previous tournament report, specifically Barry Greenstein's victory in the Razz championship, which was Event #26. Greenstein's background has been widely misreported for quite some time and some confusion may continue due to the contents of that report. It should be noted that Greenstein has been a professional poker player for several decades. Many writers, reporters, and interviewers have latched on to a widely-misreported notion that Greenstein first worked in the high-tech industry, and then retired from that field to play poker. This is simply not true. Greenstein has been playing poker professionally for many, many years. While he was playing poker as a pro, he took a position with a high-tech company for various reasons while he maintained his status as a professional poker player. The WSOP Media Relations Team kindly asks that all media correct written verbiage that makes any reference to Greenstein leaving the high-tech field to play poker. As is the case with many multi-talented poker pros, he has excelled at more than one occupation.
