WSOP Event #8

World Series of Poker Event #8, Mixed Games World Championship 3-5 June 2008

Entrants: 192
Buy in: $10,000
Prize pool: $1,804,800

Final results:

1. Anthony Rivera $483,688

2. James Mackey $297,792

3. Matt Glantz $184,992

4. Mike DeMichele $139,872

5. Eli Elezra $108,288

6. Sam Farha $85,728

7. Jeff Madsen $67,680

8. Tom Dwan $54,144

9. David Oppenheim $45,120

The winner of the $10,000 Mixed Games World Championship was Anthony Rivera. He is a 22-year-old professional poker player from Las Vegas. Rivera is originally from St. Louis, MO. He attended the University of Missouri, but decided to suspend his education and move to Las Vegas to play poker.

Rivera began playing poker about three years ago on the computer. He turned 21 just prior to last year’s WSOP and played in a few events. However, this marked his first time to cash at the World Series. He really made this one count as $483,688 was paid as the top prize.

Rivera has become a solid high-stakes player who frequents $200-400, $300-600 limit (and higher) tables in Las Vegas. He remarked afterward: “This was a very tough field. But it did not intimidate me. I am used to playing with many of these players. I know many of them pretty well. I know I can play all the games well enough to win.”

“Mixed Games” is a new event on this year’s WSOP schedule. This is the first time in history that a major poker tournament has included eight poker games. These games included:
1. No-Limit Hold’em
2. Pot-Limit Omaha
3. Triple-Draw Lowball
4. Limit Hold’em
5. Omaha High-Low Split
6. Razz
7. Seven-Card Stud
8. Seven-Card Stud Eight-or-Better

Games are played on a rotation basis. Games change every eight hands.

The $10,000 buy-in tournament attracted a stellar field of superstars and arguably the toughest field in poker history for an event of this size, other than the $50,000 buy-in HORSE competition. No less than 76 of the 192 entrants were former WSOP gold bracelet winners. The total prize pool amounted to $1,804,800. The top 24 players collected prize money.

Despite the astral field of poker celebrities, some top players pointed out that the composition of the tournament is not quite as formidable as one might believe. Three players (Sammy Farha, George Abdullah, and Amnon Filippi) argued that younger players in this event did not play “limit” and “high-low” split games as well as some of the more experienced players. Of course, two of those three were standing on the rail at the time, watching and pointing to at least of couple of finalists who allegedly “don’t have a clue.”

The runner up was James Mackey, who won last year’s $5,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em championship. At the time, he was the third youngest gold bracelet winner in WSOP history. He came up just short of victory on this occasion.

Eli Elezra busted out in fifth place. This marked his 15th career WSOP cash. Last year, the Israeli-born poker pro won the Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split championship.

Jeff Madsen catapulted to superstardom at the 2006 WSOP, where he earned two gold bracelets and very nearly picked up two more, with duel third-place finishes. He obliterated the record for “youngest player ever to win two WSOP victories,” achieving the feat at 21 years and 20 days. Madsen sought to add to his WSOP jewelry chest in this event, but ended up as the seventh-place finisher.

Given that ten-time gold bracelet winners Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan were both still alive in the tournament with three tables to go, a buzz began to circulate around the Rio that this tournament might be memorable for its historic implications. However, both former two-time world champions were eliminated late on Day Two.

So far, this can be defined as the year when poker pros have rebounded to their former glory, after years of seeing poker rocked to its foundations with so many amateur victories. Bona fide poker pros have now won 7 of the 8 events which have concluded at this year’s WSOP.