Day 39 saw the close of the two last preliminary events of the 2011 World Series of Poker, after both events were carried over for an extra day after interruption from the hard stop rule the night before. This day also saw the second Day 1 of the main event, which showed some strong action and created more developments in the Player of the Year race. Here are the results for Day 39:
Event 56: $1.5K No-Limit Hold’em
After Event 56 was ended, due to the hard stop rule, with only three players left in the game, many people were wondering at the wisdom of this rule, which has reared its ugly head time and again during the 2011 season. Despite a halt in play while he had the lead, Alexander (Hasan) Anter went on to keep his chip lead and win the bracelet, knocking the two American players out of the competition after only two hours of play on the unscheduled fourth day of play in the $1.5K No-Limit Hold’em competition. Anter’s win is noteworthy not just because he knocked Andy Philachack and Nemer Haddad to win first place and become not only the first Swede to win a WSOP bracelet, but also the first Scandinavian, but also because he managed to win with a royal flush, another first in WSOP bracelet history (it’s possible that another bracelet’s final hand was won with a royal flush, but it does seem that Anter really is the first to do so).
Event 57: $5K Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-low Split-8 or Better
The 2011 bracelet for the last preliminary event went to Nick Binger, who really worked his way to a much-deserved win. It seemed as though everything that could possibly go wrong for Binger did throughout his trip to the WSOP this year. He made a huge investment in the tournament this year, entering dozens of events, only to have two small cashes and a lot of hitting the rail, and after being slammed to the rail on the last event for which he’d registered, he got up, dusted himself off, and then ran as fast as he could to enter one last event– Event 57, the one that he would eventually win. While Binger had a healthy stack during the second and third days of play, his table placement was fierce; while David Bach, who came in second, had a strong chip lead over the other players at his table going into Day 3, Binger was sitting right in the middle in number of chips at his table. Binger worked for it, though, and made it to the final table, after eliminating the likes of Padraig Parkinson, Lee Watkinson, and David “Doc” Sands. The hard stop rule stopped the heads-up play between he and Back late in the evening, but Binger pushed forward on Friday to win his first bracelet and the $397,073 first place prize.
Event 58: $10K No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Ben Lamb is likely very excited about the way that Day 1B of the main event has played out– he’s come one step closer to the Player of the Year award. Although we have yet to see how Phil Hellmuth does in the last event, Lamb’s second place spot seems a very good leaping point to overtake Hellmuth’s lead in the PoY race, especially since Lamb came in as the chip leader in his first day of the last event of the 2011 season. Scoring higher than Hellmuth in the No-Limit Hold’em Championship is the only chance that any of the players vying for Player of the Year have for overtaking him for the coveted title. In any other year, Lamb’s performance thus far would have made him a sure bet for the position, but Hellmuth, who has won more WSOP bracelets than any other player (11 to date) has had a performance just as good during this year’s World Series of Poker.