WSOP 2009 Weekend Update

It was an exciting weekend at the WSOP as we inch ever closer to the main event, which begins this Friday. Although the main event, a $10,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament, has the huge prize pool, history and fame, it’s the winner of the $50,000 HORSE event that gets the most respect among pro poker players. The high buy-in and set of five different games means the fields are small, comprised mostly of the top pros. HORSE stands for Hold’em, Omaha 8, Razz, Stud, and Stud 8. The $50,000 HORSE event was first held in 2006, when the legendary Chip Reese won. Chip Reese passed away in December of 2007, and a commemorative trophy is now awarded to the HORSE winner in his name. In 2007 top pro Freddy Deeb won, and in 2008 it was another tournament legend, Scotty Nguyen, that took home the prize.

Day 3 of HORSE begins at 2pm PST, with 19 players left in the competition. Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, and Scotty Nguyen were among the top-flight pros that bit the dust yesterday, but the remaining field is still star-studded. Vitaly Lunkin is the chip leader with 1,527,000. Vitaly has been having an unbelievable series; he won the other big buy-in event, the special 40th Anniversary $40,000 buy-in No Limit Event. He also came in second in the World Championship Pot Limit Omaha event. He’s sure to add to his $2.3 million in 2009 WSOP winnings. Online poker legend Erik Sagstrom (aka Erik123, aka The Salmon) is in 2nd with 1,315,000. Former winner Freddy Deeb is in 3rd, and other notables remaining in the field include Ville Wahlbeck (who already won a mixed game event in this year’s Series), Gus Hansen, Huck Seed, Tong G, Chau Giang, Erik Seidel, David Chiu and Todd Brunson.

All eyes are certainly on the HORSE event, but there was a lot of other action over the weekend as well. Brandon Cantu won the second bracelet of his career, not to mention $228,867, in Event 48, a $1500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo event. Event 50 was a $1500 Limit Hold’em Shootout tournament. The Sshootout is a cool format, each table plays down to a winner, and those winners meet in the next round. This tournament came down to a heads-up battle between two previous winners in this year’s Series. Both Marc Naalden and Greg “FBT” Muller had already won Limit Hold’em events, and one of them was bound to add a second bracelet. This truly has been the year of multiple bracelet winners, headlined by Jeffrey Lisandro's threepeat.

The heads-up battle was a back and forth affair, and because it was a limit event, there was no one key hand. On the final hand of the tournament both players made top pair, but Muller outkicked Naalden to take home $194,854 in cash. Naalden won $120,614 for second. Muller, a Canadian tournament pro from Vancouver and former pro hockey player, now has 18 WSOP cashes in the last five years.