A look back at Day 37 of the 2011 WSOP: Rast denies Hellmuth

With the Main Event set to kick-off today what better way to lead into it than to have one of the greatest final tables in poker history finish up the night before. The $50k Players Championship could go down as the talk of the 2011 WSOP after last night’s proceedings!

Event #54: $1,000 No Limit Holdem, Day 4

This tournament belonged to poker pro Max Lykov for all of Day and Day 4, the Russian Team PokerStars Pro absolutely dominated play throughout the final table on his way to his first WSOP bracelet.

1.       Maxim Lykov - $648,880

2.       Dror Michaelo - $401,296

3.       Warren Wooldridge - $288,946

4.       Ren Ho Zhang - $213,539

5.       Harald Olsen - $159,134

6.       Stanislav Alekhin - $119,598

7.       DJ MacKinnon - $90,604

8.       Josh Evans - $69,230

9.       Sebastien Roy - $53,333

Event #55: $50,000 Players Championship, Day 5

WOW! Which storyline do you want to lead with:

• Rast wins second bracelet at 2011 WSOP
• Hellmuth denied 12^th bracelet
• Hellmuth finishes in 2^nd place for third time at 2011 WSOP

The final table of the Players Championship was one for the ages as an all-star lineup played near flawless poker for 12 hours before Hellmuth and Rast went heads-up for the title. In the end it would be Rast who would see his hands hold-up against Hellmuth’s big draws not one, not twice, but three times!

Other highlights of the final table included Scott Seiver pantomiming Phil Hellmuth when they were involved in a hand: a controversy -and a few accusations-after Minh Ly folded out of turn in a very important spot, causing some very uncomfortable moments between Ly and Matt Glantz: Phil Hellmuth playing near-perfect until just before the dinner break when he suddenly morphed into the Poker Brat and would bleed chips from then on.

1.       Brian Rast - $1,720,328

2.       Phil Hellmuth - $1,063,034

3.       Minh Ly - $665,763

4.       Owais Ahmed- $482,085

5.       Matt Glantz - $376,750

6.       George Lind - $300,441

7.       Scott Seiver - $243,978

8.       Ben Lamb - $201,338

Event #56: $1,500 No Limit Holdem, Day 2

There was other action at the 2011 WSOP, and the $1,500 NLHE tournament is now down to just 42 players with 2010 bracelet winner Gavin Smith leading the way:

1.       Gavin Smith - 864,000

2.       James Boyle - 850,000

3.       Ryan Goindoo - 838,000

4.       Matt Lawrence - 772,000

5.       Hasan Anter - 719,000

6.       Lars Brobak - 592,000

7.       Selim Oulmekki - 585,000

8.       Jason Gravatt - 580,000

9.       Bryn Kenney - 554,000

10.   Hasmukh Khodiyara - 471,000

Event #57: $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha 8 or better, Day 2

Big names are dominating the leader-board with just 25 players remaining in the PLO8 tournament:

1.       Nick Schulman - 772,000

2.       Allen Kessler - 568,000

3.       Bryce Yockey - 323,000

4.       Phil Laak - 319,000

5.       David Bach - 310,000

6.       Nick Binger - 303,000

7.       Trevor Reader - 292,000

8.       Raymond Dehkarghani - 266,000

9.       Austin Marks - 230,000

10.   Brent Wheeler - 157,000

All results courtesy of www.wsop.com