So Long to the 2009 WSOP

by Aaron Angerman

The Amazon Room is empty. For the last six weeks, the Rio in Las Vegas played host to #57 bracelet events, opened their doors to tens of thousands of competitors and given away over $100 million in prize money. For some, the last month and a half may have passed by in a blur. For others, like the hardcore players who went wire to wire and those working in the media, the grind is over.

The 2009 World Series of Poker marked the 40th anniversary of the event. Four decades of the WSOP meant that Harrah's was pulling out all of the stops. The Series' opening weekend saw a couple of records broken. Event #2, $40,000 No Limit Hold'em, was added to commemorate the 40 year anniversary, and went on to set the record for largest prize pool for a non-Main Event field ($7,718,400). Vitaliy Lunkin of Russia was crowned champion, earning $1,891,012. Then, right on the heels of the $40K, Harrah's hosted a $1K "Stimulus Special" event. The cheap buy-in attracted 6,012 players, easily beating out the 3,929 that showed up for a then record setting $1,500 NL event last year.

Somehow, Steve Sung was able to navigate through the minefield to earn his first career bracelet, and $771,106 on his $1K investment in the biggest non Main Event field ever.

Also new for the 2009 WSOP were the next-day bracelet ceremonies. Rather than give away a bracelet in the middle of the night with only a few drowsy souls in attendance, the WSOP staff would stop play at 2 p.m. to give away the previous night's bracelets at a special podium in the middle of the Amazon Room. After handing over the gold, an awkward few minutes would follow as the winner would have his home country's national anthem played, and the day's players, who were stopped mid-level, had to feign interest as they fought the urge to just sit and ruffle chips. If they want to point a finger at somebody other than the staff for the delays, blame the multiple winners this year. Brock Parker, Greg Mueller, Jeff Lisandro and Phil Ivey were responsible for just under 20 percent of the anthems played.

Writers were calling last year's WSOP "The Year of the Pro". The 2009 Series was dominated by just a handful of players. Of the 56 bracelets given away this year, the aforementioned foursome claimed nine of them. Parker, Meuller and Ivey grabbed a pair, while Lisandro became only the fifth ever to take home a trio of bracelets in one series. Think of it this way; one in every six trips to the winner's podium was taken by one of those four men.

Parker was the first to claim his pair, topping events #14 and #19, both Six-handed Hold'em tourneys. Just hours removed from earning his first career bracelet in the $2,500 Limit event, Parker, a 27 year-old online pro from Maryland, forked over another $2,500 to take a shot at the No-limit short-handed event. Two days later, Parker mounted an impressive comeback in heads-up play to dispatch railbird favorite Daniel Negreanu. In addition to the jewelry, Parker was awarded just under $800K for taking down two tourneys in the same week, bringing his career earnings to over $1.25 million.

Former hockey player Greg "FBT" Meuller finally got off the WSOP schneid this year. The Canadian had a runner-up finish in the first event in '07, the $10K World Championship of Mixed Hold'em, then another 2nd-place last year in a $1,500 No Limit Shootout. A bridesmaid no more, the tourney vet broke through in Event #33 this year, earning almost $500K after being crowned $10K Limit Hold'em World Champ. Then, as the Series drew to a close, FBT avenged his 2008 Shootout loss with a win in Event #50, the $1,500 Limit Shoutout.

Lisandro made history after completing a Stud hat trick. The Aussie, who now resides in Italy, picked up the second bracelet of his career by outlasting 358 others in some $1,500 Seven Card Stud. Just in case you thought Lisandro was a one-trick pony (having claimed his first bracelet two years ago in Seven Stud), Lisandro added the title "World Champion of Seven Stud Hi/Lo" to his resume, along with nearly $500K. Then, just four days later, Lisandro was at the podium again, accepting his third bracelet of '09 after a win at Event #44, $2,500 RAZZ. Needless to say, the three wins locked up the 2009 Player of the Year race for Lisandro, who was edged out narrowly by Tom Schneider in 2007 for the same award. Not sure what the WSOP has for Lisandro, at least as far as a prize goes, but last year Erick Lindgren was handed the keys to a custom-made Harley Davidson at November's Main Event final table for being crowned 2008 P.O.Y.

Only four players had claimed three bracelets in the same Series prior to Lisandro. Walter "Puggy" Pearson was the first, taking down two prelims and the Main Event in 1973. Phil Hellmuth and Ted Forrest each accomplished the feat during the 1993 WSOP. Phil Ivey became the darling of the sport with his three wins in 2002. Now the biggest name in the game, Ivey amazingly has a chance to join the "Three in a Series" club yet again.

With the record setting $40K Anniversary and $1K "Stimulus Special" event freshly in the rearview, Ivey stole the spotlight with the first of two wins in Event #6. The otherwise boring $2,500 2-7 Draw Lowball final table was the main attraction, as the Full Tilt poster boy went on to earn his 6th career bracelet, only his 2nd WSOP win since his dominating 2002 performance. And leave it to Ivey to spice up another doomed final table, as the rail was five deep to watch "the Tiger Woods of Poker" pwn the $2,500 Omaha Hi/Lo and 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo mixed game for his 7th piece of blingage. For his pair of wins, Ivey was awarded just over $300K by the WSOP staff. But, if you believe the rumors, prop bets placed by Ivey on himself winning a bracelet this year netted him a few million bucks from his degenerate, high rollin' buddies. More rumors claim that the second win could have earned him as much as a ten-figure payday. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

As if life wasn't good enough for Phil Ivey, the Main Event was still on tap. This year's big dance saw 6,494 players show up, the third largest ever, and an estimated 500 stragglers turned away due to the final Day 1 flight selling out. (Can't imagine we'll see that happen next year.) By 11 p.m. PST on Day 8, just moments after Event #36 winner Jordan Smith had his aces cracked, ending his own bid to join to two bracelet club, the final nine were told to bag there chips. For the next four months, these faces will be everywhere. When they resume play on November 7th, there, sitting in the three-seat, will be Phil Ivey.

The 2009 November Nine:

• Darvin Moon (Oakland, MD, USA) - Chip count: 58,930,000
• Eric Buchman (Valley Stream, NY, USA) - Chip count: 34,800,000
• Steven Begleiter (Chappaqua, NY, USA) - Chip count: 29,885,000
• Jeff Shulman (Las Vegas, NV, USA) - Chip count: 19,580,000
• Joseph Cada (Macomb, MI, USA) - Chip count: 13,215,000
• Kevin Schaffel (Coral Springs, FL, USA) - Chip count: 12,390,000
• Phil Ivey (Las Vegas, NV, USA) - Chip count: 9,765,000
• Antoine Saout (Saint Martin des Champs, France) - Chip count: 9,500,000
• James Akenhead (London, UK) - Chip count: 6,800,000

Each has already pocketed 9th-place money, which is a cool $1,263,602. The eventual champ will take home $8,546,435. That's about $500K less than Peter Eastgate took home last year, when there was about $3 million more in the prize pool. On the other hand, 9th-place was only good for $900K last year, so the pay scale has seen some welcomed flattening. In 2007, when Jerry Yang took it down, being the first elimination at the final table was only worth $525,934. Maybe Phillip Hilm should have waited a couple years to make an impressive run and follow it up with an epic blow up.

But it's all about Ivey. His presence at the final table should test the strength of the Penn and Teller Theater walls, come November. You have to go all the way back to 2006 and Allen Cunningham to find anyone bringing multiple bracelets with them to the final nine. But Cunningham, a quiet player who will ultimately go down as one of the all time greats, doesn't have Phil's quiet-cool. In 2005, Mike Matusow and his circus earned a seat at the final table. But "The Mouth" isn't attracting Ivey-numbers, as far as railbirds go. (Also remember Matusow had his KK fall to AA in a brutal suck, runner-runner re-suck to finish 9th.) Former Main Event winner Dan Harrington made his way to consecutive final tables in '03 and '04, nearly a decade after taking it down himself. Yawn. We want star power!

Phil Ivey is the most popular player to ever reach the Main Event final table. Period. Poker players became celebrities sometime after 2003, thanks to ESPN, Chris Moneymaker and the "Poker Boom". If Ivey isn't at the top of the list, popularity-wise, he's #2. We may have bust out the chisels to knock the perma-grins off the faces of Harrah's and ESPN's staff, as they have been handed the equivalent of Tiger Woods in a Sunday final pairing, if only Tiger would don the red polo shirt and pose for photos for the next four months. If they can make Chino Rheem and Dennis Phillips household names, imagine the wave of press that's going to follow Ivey's splash into the November Nine.

Some words of comfort for Jordan Smith, this year's final table "Bubble Boy": Back in 2003, a young bracelet winner, just like you, 27-years-old, just like you, found himself on the Moneymaker final table bubble. He got it all in after turning nines full of Queens, only to get rivered by Moneymaker himself, who made Queens full of aces. That man… none other than Phil Ivey. He turned out alright.

While the Rio is empty, the WSOP isn't technically finished. That won't come until a new Main Event champion is crowned. We'll continue our LIVE coverage when the cards get in the air in Penn and Teller Theater on November 7th.

For the complete 2009 WSOP tournament schedule, plus results, click here.
To view all of the Poker Pages' WSOP live coverage blogs, click here.

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