A look back at Day 3 of the 2011 WSOP

No room for an introduction today so let’s get right down to the action at the tables!

Event #1 $500 Casino Employee tournament, Day 3

Day 3 saw the final four players return to the tables to crown the first WSOP winner of 2011 and it was Sean Drake, a poker dealer from Sacramento, CA who would take home the top prize of $82,192.

Drake won the title after a pivotal hand that saw his opponent James Baker turn a full house (jacks full of sixes) while Drake had flopped a set of Kings, which became Kings full on the turn.

Event #2: $25k Heads-Up Championship, Day 3

Eight became four on Thursday as moving on the semi-finals were Eric Froehlich who will battle Yevgeniy Timoshenko, and Gus Hansen who will take on Jake Cody on the other side of the bracket.

Friday will see the remaining participants battle for the over $850k in first-place prize-money, although each player remaining is guaranteed a very nice score of $283,966.

Event #3: $1,500 Omaha 8 or better, Day 2

The second day of the Omaha 8 tournament got underway with 201 players remaining, and when the dust settled there were just 25 left; although there are a number of big names in contention. Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts:

1.       Francesco Barbaro — 459,000

2.       Matthew Waxman — 458,000

3.       Vladimir Shchemelev — 335,000

4.       Bradley Helm — 308,000

5.       Jimmy Fricke — 278,000

6.       Daniel Smith — 235,000

7.       Kostas Kalathakis — 209,000

8.       Michael Deveronica — 200,000

9.       Richard Monroe — 184,000

10.   Travis Pearson — 175,000

Other notables: Humberto Brenes, Scott Clements, and Lex Veldhuis

Event #4: $5,000 No Limit Holdem, Day 1

865 players registered for the $5k NLHE tournament on Thursday and at the end of the day 243 players were left standing. Here are the top 10 chip counts at the end of Day 1:

1.       Gavin Cochrane — 175,500

2.       Victor Ramdin — 174,700

3.       Brian Lemke — 171,900

4.       Steven Merrifield — 155,000

5.       Jordan Morgan — 136,400

6.       Greg Dyer — 130,000

7.       Brandon Cantu — 129,500

8.       Marc Delimal — 120,000

9.       Kevin Saul — 115,000

10.   David Sands — 110,000

Event #5: $1,500 Seven-Card-Stud, Day 1

A total of 357 players registered for the first seven0card-stud event of the 2011 WSOP and at the end of the day only 112 remained with the chip-leaders reading like a who’s who of poker. Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts heading into Day 2:

1.       Ylon Schwartz — 46,000

2.       Shaun Deeb — 36,000

3.       Andy Bloch — 31,500

4.       John D’agostino — 28,200

5.       Chad Brown — 24,700

6.       Bryan Devonshire — 24,000

7.       Tom Dwan — 23,000

8.       Eli Elezra — 21,000

9.       Ali Eslami — 20,000

10.   Josh Arieh — 20,000

Grudge Matches

Two of the three Grudge Matches took place yesterday, with Johnny Chan exacting revenge on Phil Hellmuth in a one-match winner-take-all battle, while Chris Moneymaker held off Sammy Farha in a nail-biting best of three match that came down to the final match -and required moneymaker to hit a two-outer on the river.

For complete recaps of all the 2011 World Series of Poker events you can head on over to www.wsop.com