The Canadians have picked off their fourth World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet after Calen McNeil finally ended the marathon of Event #20: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low 8-or-Better when he defeated the WSOP stalwart Can Kim Hua in a heads-up match-up that spilled over into an additional day of action. That fourth day lasted a total of three hours until McNeil found top set of kings, Hua turned two pair and the rest is history. The Canadian picked up $277,274 for his win.
Yesterday, we poised the question: “Could Matt Stout finally win his first major tournament?” Unfortunately, for Stout fans the answer to that question is the negative after the former European Poker Tour (EPT) champion, Martin Finger, took the first WSOP bracelet of 2013 back to Germany after winning Event #21: $3,000 No Limit Hold’em (NHLE) Six-Max.
Stout took to his Facebook page to congratulate the German: “Battled hard with Martin Finger heads up but came up short of the bracelet. Took 2nd place in WSOP21 ($3k 6max) for $313k. He’s a beast, played great, and deserved the win.
‘I’m obviously a little disappointed not to but it seems like the poker gods are just trying to keep me hungry. I’ll be back for sure. Much love to all of you for the support, it means the world to me.”
Stout started the heads-up action with a big chip lead, but over the next three to four hours the Finger wouldn’t stop prodding and poking and eventually the German overturned the deficit to end things with [Qs] [Qc] v [As] [7h] to take down his first WSOP bracelet and $506,764 in prize money.
“It was a big dream for me. It’s a long way to get to first and I did it…yeah…it feels good.” Said Finger after his victory.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) Champions Club member, Noah Schwartz, is in with a great shot of winning his first WSOP bracelet as he leads the final table of Event #22: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO). The field attracted 1,021 players and there is $279,175 waiting for the last man found seated. Eddie Blumenthal has made his third WSOP final table and starts third in chips, but other than that the field is fairly inexperienced giving Schwartz a wonderful opportunity to add WSOP gold to his WPT title earned last year.
Event #23: $2,500 Seven-Card Stud has been broken down into little pieces and only 10-remain. The 2010 WSOP Player of the Year (POY), Frank Kassela, has the chip lead but there isn’t much in it. David Chiu, Scott Seiver and Michael Mizrachi are just a few of the stars still in the mix, but what about this man Matthew Ashton. If there were a WSOP Mixed Game POY then surely the Brit would be one of the front-runners as he is destined to make his third mixed game final table of this series. Surely, the bracelet is just around the corner?
1,731-players created a lot of noise in the Rio for Event #24: $1,500 NLHE and the 2006 WSOP Main Event runner-up, Paul Wasicka, has the chip lead. As you would expect in this fast and furious format only 198-players remain in contention for the bracelet with Mohsin Charania, Victor Ramdin and Rob Salaburu some of the bigger names left in the competition.
The first day of Event #25: $5,000 Omaha Eight-or-Better is also ancient history and Hal Klein is showing everyone the way with 771,000 chips. 241-players started and 152 will return for the second day of action that will see the likes of Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ and Phil Hellmuth all return to the felt.
In other WSOP news there has been a lifetime Caesars ban handed out to the former WSOP champion David Diaz.
Looks like I’m kicked out of all harrahs property’s right before dinner break with a 100bb fml no main event this year.
— david diaz (@david901diaz) June 12, 2013
Because I was so drunk and harassing ppl at carnival court the other night but I don’t remember any of this fml
— david diaz (@david901diaz) June 12, 2013
Diaz had settled down to participate in Event #21: $3,000 No Limit Hold’em (NHLE) Six-Max, when news of his ban came through. Diaz had his buy-in returned but according to his Twitter, was in tears, as he now has to sit back and watch as his WSOP goes sailing by.
According to reports Diaz was banned after causing a commotion at Carnaval Court – a Caesars owned property. Diaz has no memory of the incident and some of his fellow pros have reached out to the Caesars, via social media networks, to give the man a second chance.
Diaz lost an arm whilst battling cancer as a young child and won his WSOP bracelet back in 2011.
