WSOP Day 10 recap: Dwan has chance for bracelet and millions in prop bets

The story of the World Series of Poker yesterday was Tom Dwan; first he made the final table, and as each player was eliminated the atmosphere in the Rio grew more and more electric; could he actually do it? Well, you’ll have to read to find out below!

Event #11: $1,500 No Limit Holdem

In the end it was semi-pro Simon Watts from Australia who raised his hands in victory, with Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan finishing in second place. WSOP.com reports that besides the Main Event the standing room only crowd was the largest ever to watch a WSOP final table.

Not only was the 23 year-old Dwan looking to capture his 1st bracelet, but the buzz in the Rio was that he stood to gain millions in prop bets if he is able to win a bracelet in 2010. The reports are a little sketchy as to how much Dwan would profit from the win, so I’ll leave it to Mike Matusow to explain: “Thank you for saving us all millions of dollars! How does it feel to be every high-stakes gamblers hero? They’re gonna, like, put you on the wall in Bobby’s Room or some shit.” This is what Matusow told Simon Watts -he later had to ask him his name-shortly after Watts won the bracelet.

Event #12: $1,500 Limit Holdem

In the Limit Holdem event it was poker pro and author Matt Matros who was able to outlast a pretty stacked final table to win his 1st WSOP bracelet. Matros was able to outlast Terrence Chan and Jason Potter at the final table to win the event and pocket the $189,870 in prize-money.

Matros is known more as a poker theoretician, and can typically be found talking shop with some of the greatest theoretical minds in the game like Bill Chen, Jerrod Ankenman and Andy Bloch.

Event #13: $1,000 No Limit Holdem

The second $1k event at the 2010 WSOP saw a sharp decline in attendance with 3,042 total players entering the event -Event #3 this year saw 4,345 players. Compared to last year’s $1k tournament, which had 6,000 entrants, the WSOP may be thinking about paring down the number of $1k events for 2011.

The 566 remaining players will return to the tables today to take part in day 2 of the four day poker tournament. Day 1a chip-leader Andy Black leads the field with over 90,000 chips; the next big name on the leader-board is Phil Gordon at #30.

Event #14: $1,500 No Limit 2-7 Draw

Nick Binger leads the seven finalists in the 2-7 Draw tournament with 309,000 chips. Binger’s closest competitor is Derrick Haynie with 189,000. However, Binger’s toughest competition will likely come from Poker Pros Mike Wattel and Alexander Kravchenko who sit in 4th and 5th place respectively.

Event #15: $10,000 Seven Card Stud hi/lo World Championship

The only event to begin yesterday was the second World Championship event at the 2010 WSOP, and this time the format was Stud 8. As is usually the case in the non-Holdem variants -especially with a larger buy-in-the field was made up of 170 of the best poker players in the world.

Players off to a good start include Phil Ivey who was sitting in 3rd place at the end of Day 1, Jennifer Harman in 6th, Barry Greenstein in 8th, and Gus Hansen in 13th.