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Tuesday, June 24, 2008
2008 WSOP Day 26: Woo-ing a bracelet win
By Sarah Polson
Five down, two more to go for the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em events in the 2008 World Series of Poker. This time it was David Woo topping a tremendous field of more than 2,700 players to earn the gold bracelet.
Other action on Monday included the start of the Seniors World Championship, while 2-7 Triple-Draw Lowball and Mixed Hold'em events played out their second day.
Event 39
When play began in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em final table on Monday, David Woo was in the middle of the pack, but his expectation was that he was going to pull out a win.
"Not to brag, but with these guys I really felt like I was the best player," Woo said in his post-game interview. "I would have been sick with anything but first place, just like I was last year. It was about the same situation. If you get a table full of pros you are just hoping to win. Here I expected to win."
The 30-year-old pro player from Atlanta, Ga., has been playing poker full time for about five years. He told PokerListings he's been a regular fixture at the World Series of Poker since 2004 or 2005, and last year he actually made the final table in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event as well.
That time he missed out on the win, going out in fifth place. He took home about $118,000 for his final-table finish, but he said he was so disappointed in not winning that he ended up blowing it at the blackjack table.
This time his strategy was just to make sure he didn't make the final table a shove-fest. He wanted to play small pots and go from there.
That strategy got him all the way to heads-up against Canadian Matt Wood. In the final hand, Wood raised from the button, making it $360,000 to go. Woo called and they saw a flop of 9
5
4
.
Woo fired out $175,000, and Wood repopped it to $675 total. Woo came over the top of that to make it $1 million.
Wood ended up all-in, and Woo called showing TT against Wood's 96. The rest of the board came #Q4
, and it was all over for Wood.
The final table played out as follows:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | David Woo | $631,550 |
| 2nd | Matt Wood | $389,844 |
| 3rd | Eric Beren | $278,460 |
| 4th | Habib Khanis | $233,906 |
| 5th | Thom Werthmann | $191,209 |
| 6th | Curtis Early | $150,368 |
| 7th | Thanh Dat Tran | $113,240 |
| 8th | Michael Glasser | $85,394 |
| 9th | Jim Paras | $58,290 |
If you'd like to see more details on how each and every player got booted from the table, check out the Event 39 live updates.
Event 40
Billy Baxter made a go of it on Monday, trying to make up for coming in as the short stack, when the $2,500 2-7 Triple-Draw Lowball (Limit) event began its second day of play. He lasted into the money, but just missed out on making the final table as he bubbled it in seventh place.
On his final hand, Baxter raised before the draw and got a call from David Sklansky in the small blind and Gioi Luong in the big blind. All three drew two cards, and the action was checked to Baxter.
Baxter bet, getting a fold from Sklansky, but Luong called. Luong took two again on the second draw while Baxter drew one. Luong checked again and Baxter bet all but his last $1,000.
Luong raised it to put Baxter all-in for his last $1,000, and he called. On the third draw, both took one last card, and Luong showed 7-6-5-2 and the queen he'd drawn.
It was good enough to beat Baxter who showed 8-5-4-2 and the queen he'd also drawn.
When play resumes today, John Phan will have the chip lead, but he's just $3,000 ahead of Luong. The final-table players are:
| Name | Chip Count |
| John Phan | $294,000 |
| Gioi Luong | $291,000 |
| Robert Mizrachi | $215,000 |
| Shun Uchida | $200,000 |
| Ben Ponzio | $113,000 |
| David Sklansky | $78,000 |
The remaining six will return to play at 2 p.m. today in the Amazon Room at the Rio. PokerListings will also be there to keep you in the loop with our Event 40 live updates.
Event 41
The second final table that will play today is in the $1,500 Mixed Hold'em event. After two days of play, the playing field has been chopped from 731 players down to the final nine.
The chip leader coming into today is Mats Gavatin, a Swedish poker pro who has a European Poker Tour win and a Showdown Poker Tour win on his resume as well as two cashes in the 2006 WSOP.
His nearest competitor, about $66,000 behind him, is Nick Binger, poker pro and brother to another successful pro player, Michael Binger.
The players who will be back at the Rio to play the final table are:
| Name | Chip Count |
| Chris Rentes | $132,000 |
| Michael Chu | $264,000 |
| Alex Jalali | $204,000 |
| Nick Binger | $339,000 |
| David Machowsky | $147,500 |
| Jonathan Tamayo | $238,500 |
| Mats Gavatin | $405,000 |
| Frank Gary | $332,000 |
| David Sorger | $130,000 |
Play is expected to resume at 3 p.m. today along with our live coverage of the event.
Event 42
On Monday the seniors, at least Harrah's definition of seniors, had their shot at a WSOP event of their own. Poker players 50 and older sat down to play in the $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold'em World Championship.
There was certainly no shortage of players willing to admit their age and ante up for the event as 2,218 players took to the felt on Monday, making it the largest seniors event in WSOP history.
The oldest player at the tables this year is 91-year-old Harold Waite. His play was good enough to get him into Day 2 along with 219 other players returning today.
The money starts at 198, and play will stop once the field is down to the final table today. Some of the pros who were willing to own up to their age and managed to last into Day 2 are Men "The Master" Nguyen, Tom Franklin, Tom McEvoy, Amarillo Slim Preston, Marsha Waggoner, Tony Ma and others.
Play resumes at 2 p.m. in the Brasilia Room at the Rio, and poker fans can follow the action in the Event 42 live updates.
Event 43
There's one more event getting its start today at noon, and it's the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Split Eight-or-Better event.
In 2007 the event drew in 687 players to create a prize pool just shy of $1 million. Lukasz Dumanski took the biggest bite of that by winning the event, but some notable cashers included Jeff Madsen, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, Bill Chen, Dario Alioto and Chad Brown.
Check out who's willing to pull themselves out of bed for the noon start of today's event with all the goodies provided by the PokerListings team in the ever-popular, always-entertaining Live Tournaments section.
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