The stage was set in the early hours of Wednesday morning Vegas time for the thrilling climax to the World Series of Poker main event – naming the surviving nine players for the final table.
At 2.17 in the morning, Fred Goldberg went out in position 10, deciding the composition of the grand finale. Goldberg lost his crack at the $12 million top prize, but nevertheless went home with a cheque for $1 154 527 in his pocket after he moved all-in from the cut-off for $2.8 million. Richard Lee called in the small blind, showing KK. Goldberg shows Q3. The board comes 977J8 and it was goodbye to Goldberg.
Play ended for the day minutes later and the final table will convene on Thursday, August 10th at 2pm PST to decide the 37th WSOP champion.
Final Table seating and chip counts look like this:
Seat 1 – Richard Lee – $11,820,000
Seat 2 – Erik Friberg – $9,605,000
Seat 3 – Paul Wasicka – $7,970,000
Seat 4 – Dan Nassif – $2,600,000
Seat 5 – Allen Cunningham – $17,770,000
Seat 6 – Michael Binger – $3,140,000
Seat 7 – Doug Kim – $6,770,000
Seat 8 – Jamie Gold – $26,650,000
Seat 9 – Rhett Butler – $4,815,000
The day started with 27 players, and by the time the game entered its eleventh hour the field had been reduced to 10. Professionals like Prahlad Friedman and Jeffrey Lisandro were eliminated in 20th and 17th place respectively, but Californian amateur player and ex-movie star agent Jamie Gold was the captain of much of the action, playing bold and confident poker. He entered the day as the chip leader with $13 million in chips and through skill, insight, a series of lucky flops, good hands, and extremely aggressive play, he was able to more than double his stack to almost 30 million at times.
He saw off many of the departing players, including Friedman and David Einhorn, who made headlines with his pledge of his $659 730 winnings to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Einhorn sits on the foundation’s board and planned from the beginning of the main event to donate all his winnings to the non-profit organisation.
Gold may have more chips, but the player who increased his holdings the most Allen Cunningham. He began the day in 13th position with $2 650 000 and through astute play and good fortune built his stack to around the $18 million mark.
Online poker observers believe that more than 40 percent of the 44 500 players participating in this year’s World Series found their way to the Rio’s poker room via the Internet, winning events and tournaments on pay-to-play poker Web sites. The prizes were either cash or a paid-for seat in the world championship event, which costs $10 000 to enter.
Pokerstars.com marketer Dan Goldman opined that the online milieu makes a major contribution to the global tournament through training and polishing players and sponsoring main event seats.
“We have this synergy between us. Clearly, we are important to the World Series of Poker,” he said. Goldman’s company has endorsement tie-ins with the last three world poker champions, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joseph Hachem.
“There is a percentage of people who are here because they learned how to play online. They either had some success and won money to buy in, or they won a seat,” Goldman said. “One way or another, we have increased the popularity of poker in a way that has expanded the World Series beyond the hard numbers that you see.”
This year’s world championship main event alone drew a record 8 773 entries and prize pool of $82.5 million. The winner will take home $12 million. Online poker backers believe the 56 percent increase in the number of entries in the final match over last year’s 5 619 players is a sure sign of the Internet’s power.
“When the initial numbers showed about 6 000 players in the final event, there is no question the early signups were the result of what we bring,” said Victor Bigio, marketing director for Loudvision, a Toronto marketing firm that is affiliated with UltimateBet.com. “We give players the knowledge and skills they need to play in an event like this.”
No matter what happens from this point forward, everyone on that final table is a winner. The remaining players are guaranteed a minimum million dollars or more.