The entirety of the humongous field for “Colossus II” came together for the first time on Sunday at the 2016 World Series of Poker while, off in its own quiet little corner of the Amazon Room, the deep-pocketed pros who came back for Day 2 of the $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship determined their final table.
Event #2 – $565 “Colossus II” No Limit Hold’em
After drawing in 21,613 entries for the tournament, the 846 players who came back on Sunday were all in the money. After calculations were complete, these remaining players were all guaranteed $2200 for their efforts (more than the $850 or so that players eliminated during the six Flights on Day 1), but no one wanted to depart with that pittance as $1 million was up for grabs for the champion. Starting the day, Flight F chip leader Norman Michalek was atop the standings with his 531,000 in chips, but there was a long day ahead of him and the remainder of the tournament.
In the early going, pros such as Loni Harwood, Kelly Minkin, Joe Elpayaa, Matt Stout and Asher Conniff were sent to the rail, but others pros managed to chip their way up. Bryan Piccioli took some chips off of Flight A chip leader David Polop to crack the 300K mark, while Michael Mizrachi got fortunate to bump a player out of the tournament when his A-J found a Jack on the flop against his opponent’s A-K. Mizrachi would get his chips in again facing a slight disadvantage against Joseph Cheong (Mizrachi’s K-Q off suit against Cheong’s A♣ 7♣), but he would flop a Queen and turn one to eventually make a boat against Cheong and send him to the rail.
It wasn’t until Mizrachi ran into the man that would become the Day 2 chip leader that he was stopped. Flight C chip leader Ben Lindemulder defended his small blind after a raise from Mizrachi to see a 10♦ 3♠ 2♠ flop and both players checked. On a J♠ turn, Mizrachi would check-raise Lindemulder, only to see Lindemulder fire a four-bet at him. Mizrachi, after a moment to ponder the move, just called to see a 9♣ come on the river. Lindemulder didn’t play around, putting out enough chips that Mizrachi would be all in, but Mizrachi didn’t bite; he slid his cards to the muck as Lindemulder rocketed to 1.75 million with the hand.
This just seemed to get Lindemulder started. He would crack the three million chip mark soon after the dinner break and shatter the four million mark in winning a flip (his opponent’s pocket Queens versus Lindemulder’s A-K) and powered his way over the five million mark by the time the final 77 players bagged up their chips.
1. Ben Lindemulder, 5,325,000
2. Richard Carr, 3,550,000
3. Vincent Moscati, 3,300,000
4. Farhad Davoudzadeh, 2,845,000
5. Daniel Dizenzo, 2,560,000
6. Benjamin Keeline, 2,540,000
7. Jonathan Borenstein, 2,460,000
8. Marek Ohnisko, 2,430,000
9. Alex Benjamin, 2,390,000
10. Steven Nichols, 2,240,000
Day 3 will kick off at 2PM (Pacific Time) on Monday, with the goal to work to the final table of the tournament. On Tuesday, the winner of “Colossus II” will walk off with the WSOP bracelet and a $1 million prize.
Event #3 – $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship
33 familiar professional faces walked into the Amazon Room on Sunday, looking to determine the final table for the first $10,000 World Championship event on this year’s schedule. It was an unfamiliar face, Steve Weiss, who held the lead at the start of the day, while Jean-Robert Bellande and George Danzer were in hot pursuit. With only 14 players taking a payday from the tournament, it was rather tense as the cards hit the air.
Within the first hour of the start of action, the rail began to get populated with eliminated players. Former WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela, Jason Somerville, Jason Mercier, and Anthony Zinno were among those who left empty-handed. They were soon joined by Bellande, who couldn’t recapture the magic from Day 1 when he climbed from one big bet to be in second place. It would take a pretty big hand – Calvin Anderson’s Wheel straight flush – to knock off Bellande, however.
The names continued to fall as the tournament stretched into the early evening. Cyndy Violette and Max Pescatori would fall short of the money while Matt Grapenthien and Danzer surged up the leaderboard. After Joel Tushnet ran his (9-9) 10 into Adam Friedman’s (J-J) 9 and could not find any more help to be eliminated on the money bubble, the players were all guaranteed a $14,500 payday and a WSOP entry on their poker resumes.
The eliminations of Felipe Ramos, Jeff Lisandro, Stephen Chidwick and Adam Friedman brought the final nine men to the table together, with Grapenthien and David Benyamine leading the pack. Rod Pardey was the unfortunate final table “bubble boy,” falling at the hands of Danzer in ninth place, and Grapenthien cracked the million chip mark in taking a pot off of Anderson before the dinner break. He would immediately extended that lead after dinner in making quads off his rolled up eights in getting Bill Chen to come all the way to the end with his straight.
After Anderson was eliminated by Danzer in eighth place, however, Robert Mizrachi came to life. He would eliminate Chen in seventh place to crack the million chip mark, and grinded out more chips in taking the lead from Grapenthien. By the time the smoke cleared, an outstanding final six had been determined:
1. Robert Mizrachi, 1.371 million
2. Matt Grapenthien, 1.157 million
3. Steve Weiss, 682,000
4. Ted Forrest, 447,000
5. David Benyamine, 373,000
6. George Danzer, 340,000
Weiss is the only player who has yet to win a WSOP among these players, but his Day 1 leading efforts set him up as a serious contender. He’ll have some work to do when the men return at noon on Monday to determine the victor in this World Championship and who will receive the WSOP bracelet and the $242,662 first place prize.
Event #4 – $1000 Top Up Turbo No Limit and Event #5 – $1500 Dealer’s Choice – Day 1
The final table of Event #4 will be contested on Monday, with the 667 player field whittled down to the final nine in less than 12 hours. While players such as Andy Bloch, Liv Boeree, Eric Baldwin, Ronnie Bardah and David ‘Chino’ Rheem all cashed and Mohsin Charania bubbled the final table, WSOP bracelet winner Ben Yu and fellow poker professional Kyle Julius are the notable names at the final table. They will be chasing Karl Held when the champion is determined on Monday afternoon:
1. Karl Held, 1.175 million
2. Hugo Perez, 1.065 million
3. Bart Lybaert, 810,000
4. Ben Yu, 760,000
5. Kyle Julius, 530,000
6. Nitis Udornpim, 435,000
7. Christian Blech, 315,000
8. Vinny Pahuja, 310,000
9. George Dolofan, 160,000
The champion will take down the WSOP bracelet and the lion’s share of the prize pool, in this case totaling $142,972.
For the Dealer’s Choice tournament, by the time late registration ended for this tournament 389 players had stepped up for the game. That was an improvement over last year’s 357 runners, a good sign that could bode well for the next couple of weeks for the WSOP. The resulting $525,150 prize pool will go to the top 59 finishers and the champion will receive $125,466.
When they day was over, a “blast from the past” was back in the driver’s seat. 2008 Ladies’ World Champion Svetlana Gromenkova used the elimination of Ben Ludlow in a massive Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo hand to drive her to the top of the leaderboard, where she will have to fend off several difficult challenges if she is to hold the crown:
1. Svetlana Gromenkova, 99,600
2. Richard Ashby, 82,300
3. Yueqi Zhu, 81,000
4. Michael Banducci, 74,000
5. Joshua Mullins, 71,000
6. Bryce Yockey, 67,800
7. Jared Bleznick, 65,000
8. David Sklansky, 62,000
9. Justin Gardenhire, 60,300
Play resumes on Monday at 2PM when the final 85 players will battle it out for the final table.
