WSOP Event #51

World Series of Poker Event #51, H.O.R.S.E., 29 June – 1 July 2008

Entrants: 803
Buy in: $1,500
Prize pool: $1,096,095

Final results:

1. James Schaaf, $256,412

2. Tommy Hang, $158,933

3. Phil Hellmuth, $93,168

4. Esther Rossi, $68,505

5. Jason Dollinger, $54,804

6. Sam Silverman, $42,966

7. Victor Ramdin, $32,992

8. Matt Grapenthien, $27,511

9. Edward Brogdon, $22,031

The $1,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. championship (Event #51) attracted 803 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $1,096,095. The top 80 finishers collected prize money.

This is believed to be the largest major live H.O.R.S.E. tournament in history.

H.O.R.S.E. is an acronym for the five most popular poker games played inside most poker rooms. H.O.R.S.E. tournaments include a rotation of the following games — Texas Hold’em, Omaha High-Low Split, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, and Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split (also called Eight-or-Better). Many purists consider H.O.R.S.E. to be the ultimate test of poker skill, since it requires that players play all games well in order to win.

The $1,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. champion is James Schaaf, from Torrance, CA. He is a 36-year-old software engineer.

Schaaf works for Alpine Electronics, which specializes in design and the manufacturing of automobile navigation systems.

Prior to his victory, Schaff had never cashed in a WSOP event. He won $256,412 for first place.

Schaaf accomplished one of poker’s most amazing all-time tournament comebacks. On Day One, after starting out with 3,000 in his stack – at one point he was down to just 200 in chips. He was all-in a few times during the critical orbit, but maintained his stack at less than 500 for several hands. Finally, Shaaf was all-in with Jack-Ten-Eight in the Razz round (normally a terrible hand in the lowball game) and somehow managed to triple up. He then went on a rush and made it to Day Two. The rest is history.

Prior to this event, Schaaf played in very few tournaments. In fact, he felt a great amount of personal satisfaction after knocking out his first top pro. “When I knocked Todd Brunson out on the first day, that was a big deal for me,” he said. “I had never knocked out a pro before.”

The third-place finisher was 1989 world champion Phil Hellmuth. The famous poker icon was aiming for his record 12th WSOP gold bracelet. Given the magnitude of the day, the final table area was flooded with spectators, cameras, and media interest. Hellmuth arrived at the final table second in chips and gained the chip lead at one point. That electrified the crowd. But his fortunes were eventually reversed and he played the final two hours as the shortest stack. Hellmuth finally busted out and took the defeat with uncharacteristic acceptance. “I know I played well,” Hellmuth said afterward. “All you can do is try to get it in with the best of it, and that’s what I did most of the time.”

An Interesting Bit of Trivia: Hellmuth’s first WSOP cash was in Event #6 at the 1988 WSOP. Twenty years later he faced Esther Rossi at the final table, who’s first-ever WSOP cash came just one day after Hellmuth’s – in Event #7 at the 1988 WSOP.

Hellmuth wore one of the 11 WSOP gold bracelets on his left wrist. It was from his first triumph, which occurred at the 1989 world championship. Hellmuth has reportedly given most of his other gold bracelets away to family members.

Victor Ramdin finished in seventh place. Ramdin gives a sizable percentage of his tournament winnings to charity. He pledged 50 percent of the top prize (if he won this event) to medical services in his native country of Guyana (South America).

Other former WSOP gold bracelet winners who cashed in this tournament included Joe Hachem (24th), Allen Cunningham (31st), John Juanda (35th), Mike Matusow (57th), Hasan Kamoei (58th), Tommy Hufnagle (61st), and Mickey Appleman (77th).

Nikolay Evdakov not only broke a WSOP record. He shattered it. A few days ago, the Russian poker player tied, and then later broke the record for “Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year.” The previous record was eight cashes. With his 28th-place finish in this tournament, Evdakov has now cashed ten times. Incredibly, he still has five more events remaining on the schedule to add to his tally (including the four events which will be played at WSOP-Europe).

Phil Hellmuth was the chip leader at the End of Day One in this event. He finished in third place. Through Event #51, the End of Day One chip leaders have gone on to cash 78 percent of the time — 38 of 49 occasions (the chip leader was not applicable on two events). Only thirteen of these same 49 chip leaders (27 percent) made it to the final table. Only one chip leader went on to win the event. That lone wire-to-wire winner was Vanessa Selbst in Event #19.

Scotty Nguyen is now the leader on the 2008 prize money list, having won the most money at the WSOP, to date. His accrued winnings total $2,039,628.

Through the conclusion of Event #51, the total amount of prize money awarded at this year’s WSOP totals $111,115,333. This is more than last year’s prize pool at this same time last year.

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