WSOP Day 21 recap: Poker pros continue to dominate

Perhaps it’s because there are so many more recognizable Poker Pros in 2010 than even 5 years ago, but the top players in the poker food chain seem to be having their way with the amateurs in 2010, and yesterday was no exception. Taking home a gold bracelet on Thursday was Matt Keikoan in the $10K Limit Holdem World Championship, and top players are sitting all over the leader-boards in Events #30, #31, #32, and #33.

Event #28: $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha

PLO is fast becoming a rival to No Limit Holdem, and the large turnouts for the once overlooked poker format are proof positive to the game’s rise in popularity. The 9 players who made it to the final table in Event #28 were a relatively unknown group, and consisted of a very international group with two Frenchmen, two Germans, a Brit, a Canadian, and three Americans.

In the end it was Canadian Miguel Proulx who took home his first bracelet; Proulx was the latest Canadian to win a bracelet in 2010, pushing the total to three.

Event #29: $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship

As would be expected, the $10k Limit Championship featured a very tough final table lineup -including two more Canadians, this country is truly taking to the game of poker!

• Jameson Painter: Painter has 4 cashes at the WSOP, all four being final table appearances!
• Matt Keikoan: Keikoan went into the final table with 1 WSOP bracelet as well as a Circuit Event win.
• Brock Parker: Parker picked up two bracelets in 2009, in back-to-back events.
• Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi: Mizrachi, a former WPT Player of the Year picked up his first WSOP in the $50k Players Championship earlier this year.
• David Chiu: Chiu has 4 WSOP wins to his credit, and is one of the top tournament players of all-time.

When the dust settled it was Matt Keikoan who survived the murderer’s row lineup and walked away with the bracelet and $425k in prize-money.

Event #30: $1,500 No Limit Holdem

The near 2,400 player field has worked its way down to 21, and nestled among the leaders are Neil Channing and David Sands, both of whom are having very strong performances in the 2010 WSOP.

Sands’ performance at the 2010 WSOP will determine if he becomes the latest addition to the Brunson 10 on Doyles Room, and Sands currently has 4cashes and 1 final table appearance thus far.

Event #31: $3,000 HORSE

A number of top players are among the remaining 24 players in the HORSE tournament, including Robert Mizrachi (3^rd place), Allen Kessler (4^th place), Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy (7^th place), Chip Jett (14^th place), James van Alstyne (15^th place), and Jon Turner (24^th place).

Event #32: $5,000 6-Max No Limit Holdem

A huge number of players were willing to pony-up the $5k entrants fee for this event, and of the 568 entrants 116 will be back at the tables today. The Current chip-leader is online pro Christian Harder, who is looking back at Dave “devilfish Ulliott and Phil Ivey, both of whom are in the top 10. A little further back in the field are players like Isaac Haxton, Jen Harman, Chad Brown and Men Nguyen, all of whom are in the top 25.

Event #33: $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha/Holdem

A solid turnout of 482 players put the total prize-pool for Event #33 over $1 million. With 126 players remaining Justin “boosted” Smith sits atop the leader-board, with Victor Ramdin, Andy Black, Ashton Griffin, Jeff Lisandro, Eric Lynch, David Chiu, Phil Ivey (who is somehow dominating two tournaments at the same time), Alex Kamberis, Jesper Hougaard, Ylon Schwartz, and Liv Boeree all in the top 25.

Results courtesy of WSOP.com