Brian Hastings Wins First Bracelet; Phil Ivey Lurking In Event #15
This win is the largest live tournament cash of Hastings' careeer though it is dwarfed by his online cash game winnings.
Brian Hastings has become the latest man to be crowned a World Series of Poker champion after he took down Event #12, the $10,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold'em tournament earlier today. Along with hid first bracelet Hastings also picked up $371,498 in prize money.
Due to the number of entrants - 152 of them - a number of the players received a bye in the first round of this event, Hastings included. But when the online cash game specialist was called into action in the round of 128 he made short work of James Rumptz to progress to the round of 64. Here he faced Emil "Whitelime" Patel in an exciting match-up but a match-up that Hastings emerged victorious from. Not only did this see Hastings secure a place in the last 32 but it also meant he had locked up his first-ever cash at the WSOP in Las Vegas.
Buoyed by his first money finish a full-of-confidence Hastings then sat down across from three separate opponents on Day 2 and defeated them all. First to feel his wraith was Tommy Vedes, then Amritraj Singh could not stop him and finally Jeffrey Gross was sent to the rail; despite him holding a 4:1 chip lead at one stage.
After two long matches in his previous two games Hastings upped the pace for the final match against Jason Mo. Hastings completely dominated Mo from the moment the cards were in the air and it was no surprise to see Hastings run out the victor. The final hand of the night saw Mo put the rest of his very short stack into the middle holding Qd-9s and Hastings make the call with Ah-4h. Already in front with ace-high Hastings proceeded to flop an ace to leave Mo drawing rather thin. He did pick up a gutshot straight draw on the As-8c-Js flop, then he paired his queen on the Qc turn but the river was a blank and with that Mo headed to the sidelines and Hastings was surrounded by his friend and poker peers.
This win is the largest live tournament cash of Hastings' careeer though it is dwarfed by his online cash game winnings. Already a winning player by some margin, Hastings completely demolished Viktor "Isildur1" Blom - before we knew it was Blom - for almost $4,200,000 in a single day's play!
Elsewhere Event #15, the $5,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split 8-or Better tournament is down to just 19 players of the 212 starters and once again the field is stacked with top professional players. Still in with a chance of walking away with a WSOP bracelet are the likes of John Monnette, Bryn Kenney, Todd Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and a certain Phil Ivey. Ivey will start the day with 234,000 chips which places him in sixth at the restart and it would take a brave man to bet against him winning his ninth bracelet of an already illustrious career.
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