WSOP Day 9 recap: durrrr leads event #11, Men The Master wins 7th Bracelet

Yesterday was a big day at the 2010 World Series of Poker, with a number of storylines taking shape, and the big name Poker Pros doing what they do best; winning poker tournaments.

Event #9: $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem

The winner of event #9 was online poker pro James Dempsey from the UK. Dempsey was a little late getting to the Rio to start the day, and was MIA when the cards went in the air. Fortunately he was able to get there without too much misfortune happening to his stack.

The bigger story of the tournament was the performance of the ladies: JJ Liu put in an excellent performance and finished in 3^rd place, and if that wasn’t enough two other women finished in the top 13 -Melissa Hayden in 13^th and Julie Farkas in 10^th, just missing the final table.

Event #10: $10k Seven Card Stud Championship

Men “The Master” Nguyen picked up his 7^th bracelet overall, and first since 2003, in the extremely tough field that turned out for the Seven Card Stud World Championship. The Master put on a show for the crowd, ribbing and joking with his opponents, playing his cards blind at points, and laughing and joking in typical Men fashion.

After the win Men was quick to point out his love of poker history, and mentioned his friend Kenny Flaton who passed away in 2004: When told he had matched Artie Cobb in Stud victories Men said, “Artie Cobb was a very good Stud player — one of the very best. But I want to mention one of my friends who passed away — Kenny Flaton. Kenny was one of my best friends. And he passed away. He was one of the very best in Stud. We both played many, many years. I mention him because he (belongs) with Artie Cobb. I have been with Kenny many times. This is for you, Kenny.”

Despite the shenanigans, that sometimes get out of hand, and even the rumors of soft-collusion, It’s hard not to like Men “The Master”.

Event #11: $1,500 No Limit Holdem

One word sums up this tournament; durrrr. Ok, that’s not really a word, but poker players know exactly what it means! Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan is currently out in front of the tournament with just 21 players remaining. Dwan is looking for his 1^st WSOP bracelet to go along with the millions he has won online and in high stakes cash games. This will definitely be one tournament that poker fans keep a close eye on today.

Event #12: $1,500 Limit Holdem

With 14 players remaining, the $1,500 limit tournament has a few professional players looking to take home their first WSOP bracelet: chip-leader Jason Potter, Terrence Chan, and Matt Matros.

Event #13: $1,000 NLHE

The second $1k NLHE tournament started yesterday with 1,922 players taking to the tables on day 1a. With so many $1k buy-in tourneys this year it’s unlikely any will approach the massive 6,000 players of last years. The tournaments will likely attract an average of 4,000 players each… which is still a huge number!

Poker pro and 2005 WSOP Main Event final table member Andy Black is the chip-leader from day 1a with an impressive 90k chips.

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

A fairly large field of 250 players turned out for the No Limit 2-7 draw event. When play concluded at the end of day 1 of the three day event there were only 67 players remaining, led by poker pro Nick Binger.