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Friday, June 6, 2008
Day 8: Pros versus amateurs
Banducci is a bracelet winner.
By Sarah Polson
After a week of play and the six events done, the 2008 World Series of Poker has seen five professional players earn bracelets and one amateur win.
Two more professional poker players claimed bracelets on Thursday, leaving Grant Hinkle, Event 2's winner, the only amateur to make it to the top so far this year.
Event 5
Michael Banducci, from Traverse City, Mich., defeated a playing field of 766 poker players to come out on top of the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Rebuy event on Thursday.
The 23-year-old professional poker player strapped on his first gold bracelet and pocketed $636,736 for the win. This isn't his first time to the big dance either.
In 2007 Banducci cashed in four events and made the final table in the $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em event. He also cashed in three events during the 2006 WSOP.
While many players dished out quite a few extra thousands of dollars to try to stay in and win this event, Banducci only made one rebuy and one double add-on. Which means he paid $4,000 total to walk away with a six-digit win.
The biggest rebuyer this year was Suk Sung, who reloaded 23 times and still didn't make the money. PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu still holds the record for rebuys in the event. He reloaded 46 times in 2006, with two reported add-ons as well.
Negreanu had a more modest 12 rebuys this year and ended up cashing in 22nd place. Billy Baxter, Mark Vos, Van Nguyen, Chad Brown, John Juanda, Nenad Medic, Nam Le and Clonie Gowen made it into the money as well.
In the end it came down to Banducci versus Jeff Williams in heads-up play. Banducci had a considerable chip lead on Williams when play started, and it took about 20 hands for him to finish the game.
On the final hand, Williams raised to $130,000 and Banducci reraised to $400,000. Williams went over the top of that to go all-in and Banducci called.
Banducci flipped up A
J
to Williams' A 5. The board came J
2 K T 3 to give Banducci a pair and Williams a second-place seat.
The final-table results were:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | Michael Banducci | $636,736 |
| 2nd | Jeff Williams | $406,330 |
| 3rd | Peter Gould | $245,997 |
| 4th | Lyric Duveyoung | $201,139 |
| 5th | Alan Jaffray | $164,963 |
| 6th | Jonathan Aguiar | $130,234 |
| 7th | Michael Binger | $101,293 |
| 8th | Jamie Rosen | $19,587 |
| 9th | Steve Gross | $57,881 |
Event 6
Thang Luu is thankful for finally getting the gold.
The $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Split Eight-or-Better drew 833 players this year to create a prize pool of more than $1 million, breaking yet another WSOP record. This was the largest Omaha Hi-Lo Split tournament in poker history.
Nobody benefited more from that fact than Thang Luu, who bested them all to take home first place and the cash and bracelet that come with it.
Luu is a 33-year-old professional poker player. He was born in Vietnam and now lives in Las Vegas, where he started out as a table games dealer before becoming a professional poker player.
This was also Luu's fourth year at a WSOP final table. In 2005, he came in third in the WSOP Casino Employee event, and in 2006 he was ninth in the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em event.
Last year Luu came in second behind Frankie O'Dell in the $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Split event, and he was determined to come back to get a victory this year.
Some of the pros who landed some cash in the event this year are Rolf Slotboom, Robert Mizrachi, Perry Friedman, Allen Kessler and Linda Johnson.
In the end it came down to Luu versus Spencer Lawrence, from London, England, whose biggest money win previously was $50,000 for a Second Chance Bounty Invitational at the Gold Coast Casino.
The final-table results were:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | Thang Luu | $243,356 |
| 2nd | Spencer Lawrence | $156,343 |
| 3rd | George Guzman | $93,806 |
| 4th | James Pritchard | $78,456 |
| 5th | chris Falconer | $64,243 |
| 6th | Greg Jamison | $50,598 |
| 7th | Craig Sabel | $39,228 |
| 8th | Mark Wilds | $30,700 |
| 9th | Scott Clements | $22,172 |
Event 7
The final table of the $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em event will get under way at 3 p.m. today, and it's got some familiar names due to grace it as well.
Theo Tran leads the way into the final table with about $1.8 million in chips. He was also the chip leader after the first day of play, and kept his lead through Day 2 play on Thursday. He'll make for a formidable opponent if the other players at the table can't find a way to chip away at his stack.
The players and their chip counts for today are:
- Theo Tran: $1.8 million
- Mihai Manole: $1.02 million
- Matt Keikoan: $1.01 million
- Carter Gill: 652,000
- Shannon Shorr: $620,000
- Mike Lisanti: $358,000
- Alex Bolotin: $345,000
- J.C. Tran: $273,000
- Chris Bjorin: $205,000
Some of the pros who missed the final table but made the money are Aaron Kanter, Leif Force, Dustin "Neverwin" Woolf and others.
Event 8
The $10,000 World Championship Mixed Event played down to a final table as well on Thursday, leaving Matt Glantz with the chip lead going into the final table today.
He will be joined at the table by bracelet winners James Mackay, Sammy Farha, Jeff Madsen and Eli Elezra. Also in the mix is Tom "durrrr" Dwan.
The chip counts, courtesy of www.WorldSeriesofPoker.com, are:
- Matt Glantz: $1.1 million
- James "mig.com" Mackey: $742,000
- Tom "durrrr" Dwan: $642,000
- Michael DeMichelle: $434,000
- Sammy Farha: $374,000
- Anthony Rivera: $274,000
- Jeff Madsen: $149,000
- Eli Elezra: $76,000
Play will resume today at 4 p.m.
Event 9
After its first day of play, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed event is down from the original 1,236 players to 71.
Leading the pack is Matt Matros, and some of the pros who will be fighting to make it to the final table today are Thomas Fuller, Jared Hamby and more.
Play resumes at 2 p.m.
Event 10
Event 9 may have whittled its massive playing field down quite quickly, but the $2,500 Omaha/Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo Split Eight-or-Better event wasn't quite that lucky with its start on Thursday.
With 388 players signing up, the field was considerably smaller than the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed, but it was only able to cut its playing field down to 108 to start today.
Jordan Rich will start the day with a very slim chip lead over his nearest competitor. Also in the pack are John Racener, Brandon Cantu, Allen Kessler, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Bill Gazes, Allen Cunningham, Greg Raymer, Jeffery Lisandro, Scott Clements, Howard Lederer and more.
Play resumes at 3 p.m.
Event 11 and Event 12
Kicking off today's run of poker tournaments will be the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout event. Billed as Event 11, it is scheduled to start play at noon PDT.
Event 12, the $1,500 Limit Hold'em event, starts up this evening at 5 p.m.
There's going to be plenty of poker action to go around all day long, so tune in to the PokerListings Live Tournaments section for all the latest and greatest live updates, reports, photos, interviews and more.
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