WSOP Event #30

World Series of Poker Event #30, Limit Hold’em World Championship 15-17 June 2008

Entrants: 218
Buy in: $10,000
Prize pool: $2,049,200

Final results:

1. Rob Hollink, $496,931

2. Jerrod Ankenman, $307,380

3. Tommy Hang, $194,674

4. Aaron Katz, $158,813

5. J.C. Tran, $128,075

6. Brock Parker, $102,460

7. Andy Bloch, $81,968

8. Cyril Jassinowsky, $66,599

9. Christopher Vitch, $51,230

The $10,000 buy-in Limit Hold’em World Championship attracted a highly-competitive field of 218 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $2,049,200. The top 27 finishers collected prize money.

The winner was Rob Hollink, from Groningen, Holland. He is a 46-year-old professional poker player, and collected $496,931 and his first WSOP gold bracelet for first place.

Hollink becomes the first WSOP gold bracelet ever from the nation of Holland. Many great Dutch players have come close to winning. But Hollink goes down in history as the first to achieve a WSOP triumph.

Hollink stated that he has been coming to the WSOP every year since 2001. He estimated that he has played 80-85 events, without much success. “I have won 15 tournaments in Europe, but every year I come here (to the WSOP) it has been bad luck for me,” Hollink stated afterward. “But I guess this makes up for it now.”

The second-place finisher was Jerrod Ankenman, from Avon, CT. Ankenman finished as the runner-up on one previous occasion. He was second in the $3,000 buy-in Limit Hold’em event in 2006. Ankenman co-authored a book with two-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Bill Chen called “The Mathematics of Poker.”

Poker pro Andy Bloch finished in seventh place. This was Bloch’s second final table appearance. He was the runner up in the Pot-Limit Hold’em World Championship (Event #1) and now stands as the only player to make it to two official “world championship” events so far this year.

Bloch also set a dubious record of accomplishment in this event. He became the all-time leader in “most final table appearances” with no WSOP wins. This was his eighth such achievement. Bill Gazes and Don Barton have seven appearances/no wins each.

South Africa picked up its first entry on the cash list at this year’s World Series as Cy Jassinowsky, from Johnannesburg finished in eighth place.

Three-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Dewey Tomko ended up as the 23rd place finisher. This marked Tomko’s 43rd career WSOP cash, which now ties him for 11th place on the all-time list. Tomko was also the runner-up in the 1982 and 2001 WSOP Main Events.

All WSOP images are supplied by “IMPDI for the 2008 WSOP”