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Sunday, June 8, 2008
Day 10: And the winners are …
By Sarah Polson
Winning a World Series of Poker event means a big payout and new jewelry for players, but this year there's one more perk for former winners.
For the first time ever, all World Series of Poker bracelet winners dating back to 1970 are being granted Diamond status in Harrah's Total Rewards loyalty program through March 209.
"The WSOP bracelet is the most coveted prize in gaming," said Jeffrey Pollack, WSOP commissioner. "We want every bracelet holder to know how important they are to our company, and this gesture is an important step in that direction."
Diamond status give the players access to free show tickets, Diamond Lounges at Harrah's properties around the country and priority service at certain restaurants, clubs and hotels. Plus, the bracelet winners will receive access to a VIP registration line for all WSOP events.
"We want to ensure that the valued customers get outstanding service such as expedited check-in and access to the Diamond Lounge so their experience at the Rio and other Harrah's resorts [is] as seamless as possible," said David Norton, Harrah's Entertainment senior vice president, relationship marketing.
Perhaps this is a benefit the new bracelet winners will get to enjoy as well in the future. So far this year, the WSOP has seen all-new bracelet winners. The latest two are no different.
Event 9
On Saturday, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed event played down to a winner. Despite it being a table of only six players, it took more than nine hours before Rep Porter pulled off the win.
Porter is a 37-year-old professional poker player from Woodinville, Wash. Before turning pro, he was a graduate of the University of Washington and worked in finance as an equity options trader.
Working with numbers certainly helped Porter figure out a win at the WSOP this year, something he'd been working on for a few years now.
"I'm on cloud nine right now," he said after his win. "I've been trying to win a gold bracelet for three years."
The final-table results were:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1 | Rep Porter | $372,843 |
| 2 | Nathan Templeton | $231,982 |
| 3 | Devin Porter | $151,843 |
| 4 | John Conkright | $101,228 |
| 5 | Anatoly Shilyuk | $70,860 |
| 6 | Michiel Brummelhuis | $53,314 |
Read more about Porter's win in the Live Tournament section or see what else he had to say in his interview.
Event 10
The $2,500 Omaha/Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo Eight-or-Better event also played out to a winner on Saturday. It had a stacked final table as well with Miami John Cernuto, Michael Mizrachi and John Racener in the mix, but it was a relatively unknown pro player who took it down.
Farzad Rouhani went into the final table with the chip lead and walked away from it more than $200,000 richer and with his very first WSOP bracelet.
"I must admit that I really do need the money," Rouhani said after his win. "Everyone needs the money, but this gold bracelet, to me, means a whole lot more. It is the thing that everyone in poker dreams of."
The final-table results were:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1 | Farzad Rouhani | $232,911 |
| 2 | Tom Chambers | $142,784 |
| 3 | John Cernuto | $86,117 |
| 4 | Yueqi Zhu | $63,807 |
| 5 | Greg Pappas | $48,190 |
| 6 | John Racener | $37,481 |
| 7 | Daniel Mowczan | $28,557 |
| 8 | Michael Mizrachi | $24,095 |
For more information about how the tournament played out, visit the Live Tournaments section.
Event 11
There can be only one! The final six players in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em shootout will hit the tables today to play down to a winner. After two days of having to defeat a table full of players in order to move on, the top six will have to do it one more time to take down this event.
The players battling it out today are:
| Player Name | Chip Count | |
| 1 | Greg Mueller | 1,000,000 |
| 2 | Thomas Roupe | 1,000,000 |
| 3 | Philip Tom | 1,000,000 |
| 4 | Leo Wolpert | 1,000,000 |
| 5 | Timothy West | 1,000,000 |
| 6 | Sirous Jamshidi | 1,000,000 |
Mueller made two final tables in 2007, and came as close to winning as second place in Event 1 in 2007. He has cashed once already this year, but he's still on the hunt for a bracelet.
The final table shuffles up and deals at 2 p.m. today.
Event 12
For the second time this year, an event is going into its final day with double the number of players planned. The $1,500 Limit Hold'em event had to stop play on Saturday with 18 players rather than the final table of nine.
The bigger story, however, is that Vinny Vinh has shown up for the first two days of play with the result of having the chip lead when today's action begins. Last year he managed to cash in two events without even showing up for the second day for each of them.
He's certainly in the money in this event, and could be on his way to redeeming himself for last year's drama. But there are plenty of other players who would be happy to knock him out and take the title for themselves, including Erick Lindgren.
Lindgren is sitting second in the chip count and could be on his way to a second bracelet win in this series.
Today's playing field and their chip counts are:
| Name | Chip count | |
| 1 | Vinny Vinh | $335,000 |
| 2 | Erick Lindgren | $244,000 |
| 3 | Brendan Taylor | $240,000 |
| 4 | Ali Eslami | $208,000 |
| 5 | Steven Shkolnik | $199,000 |
| 6 | Joseph Sanders | $173,000 |
| 7 | Christoph Niesert | $173,000 |
| 8 | Zac Fellows | $164,000 |
| 9 | John O'Brien | $163,000 |
| 10 | Jimmy Shultz | $161,000 |
| 11 | Golser Markus | $135,000 |
| 12 | Nguyen Duc | $115,000 |
| 13 | Chung Law | $110,000 |
| 14 | Zachary Henderson | $98,000 |
| 15 | Eric Pratt | $48,000 |
| 16 | Teddy Monroe | $40,000 |
| 17 | Steve Foutty | $21,000 |
| 18 | Arash Beral | $14,000 |
Play in Event 12 resumes at 2 p.m.
Events 13 and 14 will also continue today while Event 15 got its start at noon and Event 16 kicks off at 5 p.m. Check out all the action in the PokerListings Live Tournaments section.
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