The young Scandinavian poker player Hasan Anter finished event 56: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em in style at the World Series of Poker Friday night, eliminating his heads up opponent Nemer Haddad in just over an hour and in style….with a royal flush, believed to be the first time this has happened in a WSOP final table.
The duo were playing in an unscheduled but necessary fourth day in the competition, having survived an original field of 3,389 and a final table chock-full of poker talent.
Day 3 began with 42 players left, and a final table was reached Thursday when Brynn Kenny was eliminated at tenth place, leaving Andy Philachack in the lead with a 2 million chip advantage over his closest opponent, Hasan Anter.
However, Anter continued to quietly build up his stack until he took the lead, holding on to it as the final table shrank to three players by the time the ten level rule forced officials to shut down the game and go to a fourth day.
Resuming their seats on the extra day, the three survivors were Hasan Anter in the lead on 8.3 million, Nemer Haddad on 3.4 million and Andy Philachack on 3.23 million.
Anter went right to work, and the cards stayed with him as he continued to dominate the game, crippling Philachack in one momentous hand, and leaving him for Haddad to eliminate a few hands later.
Heads up, Anter held a 3 to 1 lead, but his opponent managed to level the chip count after a dozen hands and an exciting fight for supremacy ensued until Anter was again able to pull ahead with sustained aggressive play and finish Haddad off in style with that royal flush.
Anter claimed the bracelet and the $777,928 main prize, leaving his very worthy adversary with a second placing check for $479,521.
In event 57: $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Split, Nick Binger bagged the last of the preliminary WSOP event bracelets Friday evening when he took down his heads up opponent David Bach in a finale that lasted barely 15 minutes at level 30 and on the fourth (extra) day of play.
That additional day was made necessary by a long 12 hour third day that saw 25 survivors from the original star-studded field of 352 cut down to just two players – Nick Binger and David Bach – who had to return late afternoon Friday for another session to decide the winner.
When Day 4 play commenced Bach was around a million ahead, but Binger stayed calm, was aggressive when he needed to be, and closed the gap, going on to take the lead, his first WSOP bracelet and the $397,073 first-place prize.
David Bach had the consolation of a second placing prize worth $245,314.
Event 58: $10,000 Main Event saw 985 hopefuls take to the tables for Day 1b, the second of four Day 1 flights scheduled for the event.
Compared with last year’s Day 1b entry field the registration numbers were disappointing, declining by some 504 players, but still comprising many top players.
They could face the same ignominy as several high profile aces did on Day 1a, where names like Doyle Brunson, Jeffrey Papola, Ari Engel, Tom Schneider, Matt Affleck, Vinny Vinh, Vanessa Selbst, Josh Arieh, Evelyn Ng, Vinny Vinh’s chair, Scott Montgomery, Faraz Jaka, and former WSOP Main Event champions Greg Raymer and Jerry Yang all headed for the rail, leaving 560 players from Day 1a, led by Fred Berger in the chip lead on 209,500, to go through to the second day flights.
Back to Day 1b: Late night Friday Vegas time the field was down to 626 with three more hands to go before the officials halt the day’s activities.
Ben Lamb held the chip lead on 215,000 with Guillermo Ramirez in second place with 177,000 and a host of top players still in the field.