The 2015 World Series of Poker entered its second weekend of play with the final day of action in two tournaments. In one the eventual winner triumphed over several known professionals in the field while the other fell short of its goal to crown a champion.
Event #12 – $1500 Six Handed No Limit Hold’em
After a slow start, the 2015 WSOP seems to be hitting its stride regarding its field sizes. In Event #12, the $1500 Six Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament, 1651 players flooded the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casinos two days ago for action. Those numbers were an increase over the field from 2014, when 1587 runners would eventually see Justin Bonomo beat Mike Sowers for the gold. Leading the way for the 25 players who came back on Friday was Steve Biliraikis, in the hunt for his third bracelet and sitting on 1.015 million in chips towards that effort. Joining Biliraikis with the dream of a WSOP bracelet on their wrist were Scott Montgomery, Mike Watson (surprisingly still without a WSOP bracelet) and Zo Karim.
Befitting the action-packed nature of six-handed play, not much time was wasted at the tables. Montgomery, Karim and Ronit Chamani would hit the rails within the first hour of play while Watson went in the other direction, finding a key double up to get some health in his chip stack. After that hour of play, only 18 contenders remained with Biliraikis hanging tenuously onto his lead.
That lead would evaporate as soon as the redraw was complete. A pre-flop raising battle ensued between Geoffrey Rasmussen, Phillip Elliot and Idan Raviv saw both Elliot and Raviv at risk with the players holding these hole cards:
Rasmussen: pocket Jacks
Raviv: A-K off suit
Elliot: A♣ 9♣
Rasmussen’s Jacks were best pre-flop but an A-K-5 flop sent him from the penthouse to the outhouse, left Elliot drawing very thin and Raviv elated and in the lead. After a seven came on the turn, Elliot was drawing dead and Rasmussen was almost in the same shape. The river Queen sealed the hand for Raviv, who rocketed into the lead with the 2.25 million chip pot, sent Elliot out in 18th place and saw a dejected and short-stacked Rasmussen follow Raviv in 16th place moments later.
Biliraikis was silent through the early action simply due to the lack of cards and, even when he did get them, the deck didn’t agree with him. In a three-way all-in situation with Iaron Lightbourne and Daniel Maor at risk, Biliraikis’ pocket Jacks ruled over Lightbourne’s Big Slick and Maor’s pocket nines and stayed in front after a ten high flop. A killer Ace on the turn would be devastating for Biliraikis as it moved Lightbourne into the lead, but the drama wasn’t over yet. A nine on the river put some chips in the hands of Maor (about 684,000) for his set, but Lightbourne took a sizeable side pot with Biliraikis to move to 1.85 million in chips; Biliraikis, with a ravaged stack, dropped moments later at the hands of Lightbourne in twelfth place.
Another hour of frantic action would bring six men to the final table with Raviv and Lightbourne both over the 5 million chip mark and everyone other than Craig McCorkell (1.57 million) with only six figure stacks. Watson’s run at his first WSOP bracelet was derailed by Markus Gonsalves, who picked up pocket Queens against Watson’s Q♣ J♣ to send the Canadian home in sixth place. Raviv, meanwhile, was able to tread water while Lightbourne slipped down slightly behind him despite eliminating McCorkell in fifth place.
Raviv and Lightbourne would be responsible for every other dismissal at the table, reaching the heads up match after Lightbourne eliminated Gonsalves in fourth and Raviv dumped Manoel Filho in third. As the heads up portion began, Lightbourne was in the lead over Raviv as the duo started an epic showdown.
Fifteen hands into the heads up match, Raviv earned a double up through Lightbourne when his J-10 two pair stood up over Lightbourne’s Q-9 open ended straight draw. Now holding slightly less than a 2:1 lead, Raviv never would let Lightbourne back into the tournament even though it would take some time to finish him off. On the final hand, Lightbourne would push all-in with a Q-J and Raviv made the call with pocket sixes. Lightbourne found a Queen on the flop but, to his dismay, a six also was in the mix. Once an Ace came on the turn, Lightbourne was drawing dead and, after a cursory nine on the river to make things official, Idan Raviv had captured the $1500 Six Handed Hold’em tournament.
Idan Raviv, $457,007
Iaron Lightbourne, $283,063
Manoel Filho, $186,108
Markus Gonsalves, $122,586
Craig McCorkell, $82,467
Mike Watson, $56,835
On a side note for the tournament, this was the first event on the 2015 WSOP schedule that featured such an international lineup. Israel, the United Kingdom, Brazil, the United States and Canada each had one member of the final table with the U. K. holding down two places.
Event #13 – $2500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo Eights or Better
Due to its laid-back nature and split pot format, Event #13 was supposed to reach a champion on Friday. Instead of crowning a winner early Saturday morning, three men will return with their eyes firmly fixed on taking WSOP gold.
Another issue that prevented the tournament from reaching its goal of a new champion was the number of survivors. 40 players came back on Friday from the original 474 entries (four more than 2014) with Brandon Paster at the helm of the ship with his 385,000 in chips. WSOP-Europe champion Barry Shulman and former Poker Players’ Championship winners Brian Rast and Scotty Nguyen were lurking behind him, so Paster couldn’t get too comfortable with the crown.
Nguyen was an early elimination from the proceedings but by far he wasn’t the only one. WSOP bracelet holder Dao Bac, John Racener, Anthony Costa, James Obst and Rast would be early departures as the redraw was made at 24 players, while Vladimir Shchemelev, John Roveto, Adi Prasetyo and Shulman would join them before the two-table redraw.
The final table wouldn’t be reached until well after the dinner break, foretelling the potential for not completing the tournament on Friday night. Viacheslav Zhukov had emerged as the chip leader with eight men left, but that honor would soon switch to Benjamin Dobson. Paster would depart in sixth place at the hands of Hani Awad in Omaha Hi/Lo, which seemed to charge Awad’s fortunes. Over the next couple of hours and regardless of the game, Awad gradually worked his way up the chart after eliminating Tuan Vo in fifth as the clock passed midnight. By the time Zhukov had been chopped up in third by Dobson and Konstantin Maslak, Awad held the lead and remained there until play was called for the night.
Hani Awad, 3.3 million
Benjamin Dobson, 1.645 million
Konstantin Maslak, 975,000
The three men will return on Saturday at 2PM (Vegas time) to complete what they couldn’t do last night. One of these three men will be very happy with the return on Saturday as they will take home the $269,612 and the WSOP bracelet.
