By winning Event #34, 31-year-old Mark Schmid became the 33rd first-time bracelet winner of the 2011 World Series of Poker. Schmid outlasted 3,143 opponents over three days in the Series’ third $1k NLHE event to earn $488k. Heads-up opponent Justin Cohen battled bravely, but his triple-sevens got flushed by Schmid’s spades, relegating Cohen to second place and $302k. Professional player Schmid, who had planned a trip to Vegas but decided to stay when his online options dried up post-Black Friday, described earning the bracelet as “one of my life goals.” Wonder what else is on Schmid’s bucket list. ’Living in a world of readily accessible online poker?’
This report is a little, er, old. Relatively young whippersnapper Jim Hess has shown his elders zero respect by taking the Seniors’ Championship title. Hess is 50 years old, the bare minimum required for eligibility in Event #30, which was notable for the 3,752-strong field (a WSOP record for a single-day entry tourney) delaying the start of other events. Hess ultimately overpowered his heads-up opponent Richard ‘Dick’ Harwood, to take his first WSOP bracelet, $557k and the title of youngest ever Seniors Event champion. Harwood, whose TV director C.V. includes episodes of The Jeffersons, What’s Happening!! and The Incredible Hulk, took home $342k. We would have preferred if Harwood flew into a rage, turned green, ripped his shirt off and smashed the table into wood chips, but apparently he was quite gracious.
Speaking of chips, personal items belonging to gilded age tycoon J. Pierpont Morgan recently went up for auction in Boston. The items formerly resided in Morgan’s private steam yacht Corsair (flagship of the 1897 New York Yacht Club, we’ll have you know) and included a complete set of ivory poker chips. The chips, manufactured by giftware artisans Black, Starr & Frost, were likely used in games Morgan regularly played with fellow tycoons John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, as well as President William Howard Taft (the fat one). The chips sparked a bidding war, ultimately selling for a cool $66k. That’s a lot of dead presidents for a small chunk of dead elephant.
