WSOP Day 10 recap sees Paul Volpe and Gregory Kolo win their first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets; Daniel Negreanu come close to bagging his seventh; the Shamrock Kid making his 46th WSOP cash and much more.
I’ll say one thing about the 45th Annual WSOP. The top cats are very definitely getting the cream.
Paul Volpe has prevented the reigning WSOP Player of the Year (POY), Daniel Negreanu, from capturing his seventh bracelet, by taking home his first in Event #13: $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship.
With close to $2.7m, in live tournament earnings, and over $4.7m online – where he plays under the pseudonym Paulgees81 – Volpe is without doubt one of the classiest players on the tour, and will be a very popular winner.
Volpe finished eighth in this same event, last year, and once again proves his skill across all levels of poker. It’s also a huge psychological win for the man who came into two World Poker Tour (WPT) final tables, with the chip lead, in 2013, only to come up short on both occasions.
Negreanu teamed up with Phil Ivey to offer even money odds that one of the pair would win a bracelet, and he came close to ending that bet early, although in truth once Volpe had eliminated Jason Mercier in third there was only ever going to be one winner.
Going into the final table Volpe was the only member of the cast without a WSOP bracelet.
A fact will never again be uttered.
Gregory Kolo wins Event #12 $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em
It’s been a good two years in the life of Gregory Kolo.
The Rocky River native took third in the WSOPC Main Event in Cincinnati, in Sep, for a career best score of $100,899, and he has followed that up with a $169,225 haul after achieving victory in Event #12: $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em.
Kolo has been amassing live tournament cashes since 2009, but this is his first-ever WSOP cash outside of Circuit events. He started the final table as the chip leader, after eliminating the former November Niner, Phil Collins, in a crucial pot late on Day 2, and he never really looked troubled throughout the final action.
Special praise must go to Tom ‘The Shamrock Kid’ McCormick who made his 46th WSOP cash after finishing in fifth place. Alas, the gold bracelet still eludes the man who has been banking WSOP dollar since 1992.
The Best of the Rest
In other news, Dan Hirelman, leads the final 26-players in Event #14: $1,500 Limit Omaha Hi-Low. The Arizona native has cashed at successive WSOP’s stretching back to 2007 but he has never before made a final table.
Konstantin Puchkov (289,000), Dan Heimiller (249,000), Greg Raymer (202,000) and Maria Ho (122,000) headline the final stages of that event.
Event #15: $3,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em was a star-studded event that saw stacked tables litter the Brasilia room on the first day of action.
810 players entered the fray, and 144 survived, with the controversial Brandon Cantu leading the field. Cantu was recently outed by Jeff Lisandro as a man who doesn’t pay his debts and has a gambling problem.
Other notables, over a 100k, include Barry Hutter (201,100), Andreas Hoivold (195,200), Davidi Kitai (141,900), Byron Kaverman (133,600) and Michael Mizrachi (100,700).
And finally, the first day of action in Event #16: $1,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, continued into the early hours and IveyPoker pro Mike Leah has the lead in that one.
The field reached 348 entrants and 54 made it through to a second day of action. Dan Smith, Jason Mercier, Stephen Chidwick, Layne Flack and Dan Kelly have chips in that one.
