2008 WSOP FINAL RESULTS for Event 51

2008 World Series of Poker
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada

Official Report
Event #51
H.O.R.S.E.
Buy-In:  $ 1,500
Number of Entries:  803
Number of Re-Buys:  NA
Total Net Prize Pool: $ 1,096,095
June 29 – July 1, 2008

Photo By IMPDI

Final Results:

1    James Schaaf    $256,412    Torrance    California
2    Tommy Hang    $158,933    Seattle    Washington
3    Phil Hellmuth    $93,168    Palo Alto    California
4    Esther Rossi    $68,505    Las Vegas    Nevada
5    Jason Dollinger    $54,804    Coral Springs    Florida
6    Sam Silverman    $42,966    Las Vegas    Nevada
7    Victor Ramdin    $32,992    Bronx    New York
8    Matt Grapenthien    $27,511    Chicago    Illinois
9    Edward Brogdon    $22,031    Thorndale    Texas
10    Lonnie Heimowitz    $22,031    Monticello    New York
11    Steve Diano    $16,551    Las Vegas    Nevada
12    Phillip Penn Sr.    $16,551    Omaha    Nebraska
13    Randy Holland    $11,070    Los Angeles    California
14    Arash Ghaneian    $11,070    Maumee    Ohio
15    Keith Sexton    $8,878    Henderson    Nevada
16    Arthur Young    $8,878    Biloxi    Mississippi
17    Stephen Wolff    $6,686    Irvine    California
18    Hoyt Verner Jr.    $6,686    Melbourne Beach    Florida
19    Jens Voertmann    $6,686    Dortmund    Germany
20    Edmond Tonnellier    $6,686    London    Ontario, Canada
21    Roland Isra    $6,686    Forest Hill    New York
22    Huai Zhang    $6,686    Mountainview    California
23    Joe Hachem    $6,686    Las Vegas    Nevada
24    Chad Brown    $6,686    Margate    Florida
25    Michael Scipione    $5,042    Philadelphia    Pennsylvania
26    Daniel Sindelar    $5,042    Las Vegas    Nevada
27    Allan Enciso    $5,042    Los Angeles    California
28    Brian Wehner    $5,042    Henderson    Nevada
29    Giovanni Rizzo    $5,042
30    Allen Cunningham    $5,042    Las Vegas    Nevada
31    Alex Jacob    $5,042    Tulsa    Oklahoma
32    Joseph Bolnick    $5,042    Los Angeles    California
33    Casey Kastle    $3,945    Chicago    Illinois
34    Vaughan Machado    $3,945    Nantucket    Massachusetts
35    John Juanda    $3,945    Las Vegas    Nevada
36    Jan Suchanek    $3,945        New Zealand
37    Mark Gregorich    $3,945    Las Vegas    Nevada
38    Michelle Ankenman    $3,945    Acon    Connecticut
39    Blakely Purvis    $3,945    Montgomery    Alabama
40    Michael Baxley    $3,945    Brevard    North Carolina
41    Christopher Back    $3,617    Kamloops    British Columbia, Canada
42    David Gee    $3,617    Gilbert    Arizona
43    George Bourdos    $3,617    Scottsdale    Arizona
44    Thomas Koral    $3,617    Skokie    Illinois
45    Michael Binger    $3,617    Las Vegas    Nevada
46    Gary Hutzler    $3,617    Bridgewater    New Jersey
47    Gregory Jamison    $3,617    Las Vegas    Nevada
48    Andreas Foulias    $3,617    Gilbert    Arizona
49    Scott Epstein    $3,288    Las Vegas    Nevada
50    William Williams    $3,288    Riverside    California
51    Kristan Lord    $3,288    Palm Harbor    Florida
52    Allen Bari    $3,288    West Orange    New Jersey
53    Paul Sherr    $3,288    Phoenix    Arizona
54    John Cutter    $3,288    Florence    South Carolina
55    Raymond McClure    $3,288    Stratford     Ontario, Canada
56    Clifford Pappas    $3,288    Scottsdale    Arizona
57    Mike Matusow    $2,959    Henderson    Nevada
58    Hassan Kamoei    $2,959    Indio    California
59    Topias Wahlbeck    $2,959    Espoo    Finland
60    Derek Mcclasky    $2,959    Columbus    Ohio
61    Thomas Hufnagle    $2,959    Las Vegas    Nevada
62    Charles Mcgowan    $2,959    Columbus    Ohio
63    Van Arreca    $2,959    Baldwin Park    California
64    Todd Ickow    $2,959    Valparaiso    Indiana
65    Reed Spore    $2,630    Cedar Falls    Iowa
66    Nicholas Rainey    $2,630
67    Esther Taylor    $2,630    Portland    Oregon
68    Teddy Selby    $2,630    Coral Springs    Florida
69    John Zaleski    $2,630    Mission Viejo    California
70    Thomas Doeh    $2,630    Hermosa Beach    California
71    Eugene Katchalov    $2,630    New York    New York
72    Thomas Gehret    $2,630    Philadelphia    Pennsylvania
73    Jan Sjavik    $2,301    Oslo    Norway
74    Brett Richey    $2,301    New York    New York
75    Charles Barker    $2,301    Richardson    Texas
76    Jeff Campbell    $2,301    Duluth    Georgia
77    Mickey Appleman    $2,301    Fort Lee    New Jersey
78    Paul Jackson    $2,301
79    Svetlana Gromenkova    $2,301         Russia
80    Adam Heller    $2,301    London    England

Tournament Notes:

·        The $1,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. championship (Event #51) attracted 803 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $1,096,095.  The top 80 finishers collected prize money.

·        This is believed to be the largest major live H.O.R.S.E. tournament in history.

·        H.O.R.S.E. is an acronym for the five most popular poker games played inside most poker rooms.  H.O.R.S.E. tournaments include a rotation of the following games — Texas Hold’em, Omaha High-Low Split, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, and Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split (also called Eight-or-Better).  Many purists consider H.O.R.S.E. to be the ultimate test of poker skill, since it requires that players play all games well in order to win.

·        The tournament was played over three consecutive days.  The final table was played on the secondary stage.  The main stage was used by ESPN for its broadcast of the Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship (Event #50) which took place at the same time.  Due to the potential historic consequences of the finale, the crowd of spectators for this event was much larger than average.

·        The rotation of games in this tournament goes for eight hands at a time.  The format tends to favor stud specialists, since 3/5ths of the games are stud-based (Seven-Card Stud, Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split, and Razz).

·        This is the third of three H.O.R.S.E. tournaments on the 2008 WSOP schedule.  The $50,000 buy-in World Championship event (won by Scotty Nguyen) concluded two days earlier.

·        Last year’s champion was Jens Voertmann.  He entered this event but did not cash.  So far, 50 of 51 defending champions at this year’s WSOP have failed to cash in their respective events.  Blair Rodman was the lone exception.

·        The $1,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. champion is James Schaaf, from Torrance, CA.  He is a 36-year-old software engineer.

·        Schaaf works for Alpine Electronics, which specializes in design and the manufacturing of automobile navigation systems.

·        Prior to his victory, Schaff had never cashed in a WSOP event.  He won $256,412 for first place.

·        Schaaf accomplished one of poker’s most amazing all-time tournament comebacks.  On Day One, after starting out with 3,000 in his stack – at one point he was down to just 200 in chips.  He was all-in a few times during the critical orbit, but maintained his stack at less than 500 for several hands.  Finally, Shaaf was all-in with Jack-Ten-Eight in the Razz round (normally a terrible hand in the lowball game) and somehow managed to triple up.  He then went on a rush and made it to Day Two.  The rest is history.

·        Prior to this event, Schaaf played in very few tournaments.  In fact, he felt a great amount of personal satisfaction after knocking out his first top pro.  “When I knocked Todd Brunson out on the first day, that was a big deal for me,” he said.  “I had never knocked out a pro before.”

·        Schaaf’s hometown cardroom is the Hustler Casino in Gardena, CA.

·        The second-place finisher was Tommy Hang, from Seattle WA.

·        The third-place finisher was 1989 world champion Phil Hellmuth.  The famous poker icon was aiming for his record 12th WSOP gold bracelet.  Given the magnitude of the day, the final table area was flooded with spectators, cameras, and media interest.  Hellmuth arrived at the final table second in chips and gained the chip lead at one point.  That electrified the crowd.  But his fortunes were eventually reversed and he played the final two hours as the shortest stack.  Hellmuth finally busted out and took the defeat with uncharacteristic acceptance.  “I know I played well,” Hellmuth said afterward.  “All you can do is try to get it in with the best of it, and that’s what I did most of the time.”

·        An Interesting Bit of Trivia:  Hellmuth’s first WSOP cash was in Event #6 at the 1988 WSOP.  Twenty years later he faced Esther Rossi at the final table, who’s first-ever WSOP cash came just one day after Hellmuth’s – in Event #7 at the 1988 WSOP.

·        Hellmuth wore one of the 11 WSOP gold bracelets on his left wrist.  It was from his first triumph, which occurred at the 1989 world championship.  Hellmuth has reportedly given most of his other gold bracelets away to family members.

·        Esther Rossi took fourth place.  This was her tenth career WSOP cash and first since 2005 when she cashed in the Main Event that year.

·        Victor Ramdin finished in seventh place.  Ramdin gives a sizable percentage of his tournament winnings to charity.  He pledged 50 percent of the top prize (if he won this event) to medical services in his native country of Guyana (South America).

·        Day Two lasted 14 hours.  In fact, 21 players returned for Day Three (instead of eight).  It took another 12 hours to play down to the winner.

·        Other former WSOP gold bracelet winners who cashed in this tournament included Joe Hachem (24th), Allen Cunningham (31st), John Juanda (35th), Mike Matusow (57th), Hasan Kamoei (58th), Tommy Hufnagle (61st), and Mickey Appleman (77th).

·        Nikolay Evdakov not only broke a WSOP record.  He shattered it.  A few days ago, the Russian poker player tied, and then later broke the record for “Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year.”  The previous record was eight cashes.  With his 28th-place finish in this tournament, Evdakov has now cashed ten times.  Incredibly, he still has five more events remaining on the schedule to add to his tally (including the four events which will be played at WSOP-Europe).

·        Phil Hellmuth was the chip leader at the End of Day One in this event.  He finished in third place.  Through Event #51, the End of Day One chip leaders have gone on to cash 78 percent of the time — 38 of 49 occasions (the chip leader was not applicable on two events).  Only thirteen of these same 49 chip leaders (27 percent) made it to the final table.  Only one chip leader went on to win the event.  That lone wire-to-wire winner was Vanessa Selbst in Event #19.

·        Sam Silverman was the chip leader at the start of this final table.  He ended up as sixth-place finisher.  Through Event #51, eighteen of 49 chip leaders at the start of the final table (36 percent) went on to win the event.  Twenty-nine of 49 chip leaders (59 percent) went on to finish in the top three spots.  Two events did not have a chip leader (Heads-Up and Shootout tournaments).

·        Winner James Schaaf is officially listed as being from Torrance, CA.  Through the conclusion of Event #51, the gold bracelet count by nations and states reads as follows:
12 – Nevada
9 – California
4 – New York
3—Canada
3 – Germany
2 – Italy
2 – Missouri
1 – Arizona
1 – Belgium
1 – Brazil
1 – Denmark
1 – Florida
1 – France
1 – Georgia
1 – Holland
1—Ireland
1 – Maryland
1 – Michigan
1 – Ohio
1 – Pennsylvania
1 – Russia
1 – South Carolina
1 – Wisconsin

·        Eleven different nations have produced a gold bracelet winner at this year’s WSOP.  This list now includes Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Russia, and the United States.

·        The Event #51 winner James Schaaf is to be classified as an amateur player.  He holds a full-time job and plays poker recreationally.  Accordingly, the “Pro-Am” gold bracelet scoreboard currently reads:
Professionals – 37 wins
Amateurs — 12 wins
Semi-Pros — 2 wins

·        Erick Lindgren now leads the “Player of the Year” race (through the end of Event #50).  Barry Greenstein, Jacobo Fernandez, David Benyamine, and John Phan are close behind,  For a complete updated points list, see:  http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/players/2008.asp?sort=poypts

·        Scotty Nguyen is now the leader on the 2008 prize money list, having won the most money at the WSOP, to date.  His accrued winnings total $2,039,628.

·        Through the conclusion of Event #51, the total amount of prize money awarded at this year’s WSOP totals $111,115,333.  This is more than last year’s prize pool at this same time last year.

·        On this day, Harrahs Entertainment/WSOP and BetFair jointly announced the upcoming schedule for WSOP Europe.  WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack presided over a short press conference at the Rio which provided details about the event.  There will be four gold bracelet tournaments which will take place in London, England.  The dates are September 19th through October 2nd, 2008.  More details can be found at the official WSOP website:  www.worldseriesofpoker.com