WSOP Day 31: Hennigan Conquers, Patterson Prevails

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John Hennigan, Johnny World, WSOP 2014, World Series of Poker
John Hennigan, AKA “Johnny World”, took over and captured the coveted PPC gold bracelet and trophy. (Image: WSOP)

The most-watched tournament of this Friday edition of the 2014 World Series of Poker was the Monster Stack event, a $1,500 NLHE tournament with deep stacks of chips that brought more players to the table than anyone expected. The WSOP staff had to act on the numbers as they came in and eventually had the final players seated by midnight. It was a crazy day, but no one was turned away.

Needless to say, there may be more Monster Stack events on the schedule in 2015.

Meanwhile, the coveted Poker Players Championship Chip Reese trophy was on the line, along with the first prize of more than $1.5 million. The final table was filled with worthy contenders, and none other than John Hennigan, known to many as “Johnny World,” shone through, taking home his third bracelet and the trophy honoring his one-time friend Chip Reese.

Tyler Patterson also won a tournament, beating 990 other players in the PLO-8 field to win WSOP gold.

Stay tuned for the weekend action as we update it here daily.

Event 46: $50K Poker Players Championship (Day 5 of 5)

The Poker Players Championship was one to watch. Despite the low turnout as compared to previous years, the field was stacked with big names and started with these numbers:

Entries: 102
Prize pool: $4,896,000
Places paid: 14

Day 4 took 22 remaining players and took the top 14 of them into the money. Play stopped with just eight players still seated and Brandon Shack-Harris in the chip lead.

Day 5 started with the eighth place elimination of Allen Kessler for $134,101, and Melissa Burr followed in seventh place. Frank Kassela was the sixth place finisher, and Chun Lei Zhou and Abe Mosseri exited next in that order. When the final three took a dinner break, Shack-Harris was leading, Jesse Martin was in second, and John Hennigan was in a close third.

Shack-Harris lost ground but did eliminate Martin in second. John Hennigan took the chip lead into heads-up play against Shack-Harris, though, and captured the win in little more than an hour. This was Hennigan’s third WSOP bracelet.

1st place: John Hennigan ($1,517,767)
2nd place: Brandon Shack-Harris ($937,975)
3rd place: Jesse Martin ($594,570)
4th place: Abe Mosseri ($402,696)
5th place: Chun Lei Zhou ($286,122)
6th place: Frank Kassela ($212,829)
7th place: Melissa Burr ($165,435)
8th place: Allen Kessler ($134,101)

Event 48: $1,500 PLO-8 (Day 3 of 3)

The Tuesday tournament saw an upswing in interest from the previous year and began with these figures:

Entries: 991
Prize pool: $1,337,850
Places paid: 117

Day 2 thinned the field from 152 players, into the money, and down to just 11 players with Scott Clements in the lead.

Day 3 saw Brian Brubaker exit in 11th and Philip Sternheimer in tenth, each missing the final table but taking home $15,278 for their efforts. Recognizable faces like Tom Schneider and Jeff Madsen departed in sixth and fourth places, respectively, and Tyler Patterson took a bit of a lead into heads-up play against Scott Clements. But the play was tense and went on for nearly two hours before Patterson won his first bracelet and denied Clements his third.

1st place: Tyler Patterson ($270,992)
2nd place: Scott Clements ($167,686)
3rd place: Cody Crawford ($104,914)
4th place: Jeff Madsen ($76,150)
5th place: Gary Kosakowski ($56,216)
6th place: Tom Schneider ($42,142)
7th place: Derek Raymond ($32,054)
8th place: J.R. Flournoy ($24,710)
9th place: Dylan Wilkerson ($19,305)

Event 49: $5K NLHE (Day 2 of 3)

With nearly 100 players less than the previous year, this event still had a fairly strong showing and substantial prize pool:

Entries: 696
Prize pool: $3,271,200
Places paid: 72
First place prize: $719,707

Day 2 brought 204 players back to the tables, and it took until the mid-evening hours to burst the money bubble, which happened courtesy of Dan O’Brien, who exited in 73rd place. Pierre Neuville was the first to head to the cashier cage for his $9,224, and others who followed included Taylor Paur, Eric Froehlich, Ami Barer, Ken Einiger, Lauren Kling, and Hasan Habib. Randal Flowers exited in 24th place for $22,309, and play stopped with 23 players remaining and these five in the lead:

1. Margareta Morris (805,000)
2. John Dolan (719,000)
3. Timur Margolin (647,000)
4. Jason Koon (616,000)
5. Kevin MacPhee (601,000)

Event 50: $1,500 Eight-Game Mix (Day 2 of 3)

The low buy-in mixed game event was popular and did well as a new offering on this year’s schedule:

Entries: 486
Prize pool: $656,100
Places paid: 49
First place prize: $167,332

Day 2 started with 106 remaining players, and the money bubble finally burst in the evening hours to allow payouts to begin at $3,063. Max Pescatori, Gabriel Nassif, and Greg Raymer were among the first to cash, and names like Brandon Cantu, Martin Staszko, and David Baker followed later in the evening. Of the 14 who survived, these were the top five on the leaderboard:

1. Dan Heimiller (227,000)
2. Aaron Steury (226,000)
3. Phil Ivey (220,500)
4. Yuebin Guo (211,500)
5. Christoph Haller (210,500)

Event 51: $1,500 NLHE Monster Stack (Day 1 of 5)

This was quite the exciting tournament. Earlier in the week, registration was happening at such a pace that the WSOP staff declared that there would be two starting flights for the event. Even with that change, Thursday saw such big numbers that the latter flight had to be seated in waves, with the last of the players taking their seats past 10:30 at night. Eventually, late in the night, the confusion died down and the final numbers for this deep-stack event were set:

Entries: 7,862
Prize pool: $10,613,700
Places paid: 792
First place prize: $1,327,083

No corresponding 2013 event.

When the madness ended late into the night, only 3,826 players made it through with chips. Those with the top five chip stacks were listed as:

1. Pierre Calamusa (243,000)
2. Arnie Friedman (164,000)
3. Matthew Haugen (157,300)
4. John Monnette (156,500)
5. Tim Davie (143,700)

Event 52: $10K LHE (Day 1 of 3)

This championship event began at 4pm in the afternoon and drew a fair number of players for the big buy-in event:

Entries: 122
Prize pool: $1,146,800
Places paid: 18
First place prize: $303,909

No corresponding 2013 event.

More than half of the players survived the late-night limit action, resulting in 72 of them bagging chips when the clock stopped. Official chip counts were not available, but the top five that were given were:

1. Kenny Shei (118,400)
2. David Chiu (102,900)
3. Antonio Esfandiari (99,200)
4. Greg Debora (96,700)
5. Brian Tate (96,500)

On Tap for June 27

Events 49 and 50 will play until winners are determined.

Event 51 will attempt to thin the field down to a more manageable number.

Event 52 will play toward a final table.

Event 53 ($1K Ladies NLHE) will start at noon with its actual buy-in of $10K but 90% discount for women. Event 54 ($3K PLO-8) will begin at 4pm.

 

Editor’s Note: Cardschat.com reporter Jennifer Newell is on site in Las Vegas, and will be offering daily news recaps throughout World Series of Poker 2014. Check back here daily for a detailed accounting of events, exclusive interviews, and anything of interest regarding WSOP.



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