While it was a fairly known and talented name in poker in Jared Jaffee winning a Bracelet in the $1500 Mixed Max Event, the other newsmaker of the day was Philip Hui, a slightly lesser known name, who won the $3000 Omaha Hi-Lo event for his first bracelet. The only other buzz in the Rio All Suite hotel and Casino was the build up to the $10K Main Event as last chance satellites and hasty regsitrations started.
Event 56: $1K NLHE
Mike Kachan won the hugely attended Event 56 with more than 2600 entrants taking to the felt with the small buyin of $1000. It took more than 3 days and an American dominated final table to take down the event. Kachan who played this event while waiting for the Main Event to start hit the hammer when hot and dominated the FT at exactly the right times to chip up and finally defeat Jeff Blenkarn. While six of the 9 Final tablers of this event were playing at their first ever WSOP FT, action was very intense.
The top 270 finishers made the money. Some of the notables who cashed include Hiren “Sunny” Patel (141st), Rep Porter (126th), two-time bracelet winner Andy Frankenberger (104th), Loni Harwood (46th) and Matt Salsberg, who ended up bubbling the final table in tenth place.
Here are the final table results from the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event:
1st: Mike Kachan – $403,483
2nd: Jeff Blenkarn – $250,815
3rd: Eric Shanks – $177,527
4th: Andrew Egan – $128,032
5th: Viktor Skoldstedt – $93,490
6th: Neo Hoang – $69,084
7th: Steve Gross – $51,676
8th: Richard Milne – $39,109
9th: Raymond Henson – $29,951
Event 58: $1500 NLHE Mixed Max
This is one event which requires a good amount of skill and invites the best of poker talent. Jared Jaffee winning this event over 1652 others surely speaks for the poker skill of this player. He defeated an equally capable player in Mike Watson in heads up play to take down his first ever WSOP Bracelet and the top prize money of $405,000.
There were 1,475 players in the event, generating a $1,991,250 prize pool. The top 162 players finished in the money. Some of the notables who cashed include James Woods (149th), Marc-Andre Ladouceur (119th), Matt Waxman (110th), Jason Somerville (95th), Allen Cunningham (89th), Jim McManus (71st), Jason Koon (39th), Jeff Gross (7th), and Brandon Cantu (6th).
Here are the results from the heads-up portion of the $1,500 Mixed Max:
1st: Jared Jaffee – $405,428
2nd: Mike Watson – $246,068
3rd: Mark Herm – $126,882
4th: Joseph Alban – $126,882
Philip Hui made a huge comeback on the final table and overcame a chip disadvantage to win the Event 59 for his first ever WSOP Bracelet and the top prize of $286,976. While the WSOP Circuit grinder from Texas was outchipped several times during the FT, his heads up 18 to 1 disadvantage to Zachary Milchman was something very few could defeat. It looked Milchman would pave his way to his first ever gold but it wasn’t his day and everything seemed to be going against him. Finally it was Hui who inched his way to victory overcoming 457 player field.
This $3,000 Omaha High-Low event generated a prize pool of $1,247,610. The top 54 players each earned a payday. Some of the notable players who cashed include Naoya Kihara (54th), Brandon Shack-Harris (34th), Chino Rheem (23rd), Mike Leah (19th), Justin Bonomo (18th), Melissa Burr (13th), and Don Zewin, who bubbled the final table in tenth place.
Here are the final table results from the $3,000 Omaha High-Low event:
1st: Phillip Hui – $286,976
2nd: Zachary Milchman – $177,609
3rd: Michael Bees – $118,036
4th: Ismael Bojang – $87,594
5th: John D’Agostino – $65,736
6th: David Williams – $49,817
7th: Matt Glantz – $38,089
8th: Jordan Morgan – $29,356
9th: Joe Mitchell – $22,793
Team India
Shashank Jain ruled for the Indian contingent as he finished 21st with $12,445 in Event 58: $1500, NLHE Mixed Max. This was the highest ever an Indian has finished in this event which calls for a high level of poker skill and versatility. What is also worth appreciating is that Shashank also lead the tourney in parts.
In Event 59, Sahil Aggarwal finished 104 with $3,875 while Aditya Agarwal cashed the same amount in 109th place.