News / Matthew Pitt / 26 June 2009 / Leave a comment

After two gruelling days of poker, including a 13 hour long Day 2, the $2,500 Mixed Hold'em Event#47 is down to the final nine players and is preparing to hand out another coveted bracelet to the lucky winner.

The first and only mixed event of the 2009 World Series of Poker concentrated on purely Texas Hold'em with half of the 60 minute blinds being dedicated to No-limit Hold'em and the other 30 minutes to Fixed Limit Hold'em. In total 527 players paid the $2,500 entry to see if they could emulate Erick Lindgren who won this event last year to secure his first, long-overdue bracelet.

Some of the biggest names in poker had their eye on the $278,804 first prize but Andy Black, Noah Boeken, Sorel Mizzi and Liz Lieu were all high-profile casualties within the first couple of hours.

Hellmuth busts after a great call

Eleven time bracelet winner, Phil Hellmuth was another who would fail to make Day 2 when he snap-called a check-raise all-in by Jean-Robert Bellande on a flop reading As6c3s with a pair of sevens to find himself in front of Bellande's Jack-six but after a king on the turn was met by a six on the river, Hellmuth headed for the rail.

By the close of Day 1, only 67 of the 527 entrants remained and it was Barry Greenstein who lead them all with 177,200 chips, 12,200 ahead of his nearest rival, Hasan Habib. Of the 67 returning for Day 2, 13 knew they would not make any money as only the top 54 would reach the money.

Within ten minutes of Day 2 starting there was the first bust-out. Clark Hamagami pushed his stack in with Qd9d and found a caller in Marc Naalden who held AcJc. The board played out Ah8dQhTh2d and the recent winner bracelet winner claimed the first scalp of the day.

Bubble bursts three ways

A constant stream of eliminations followed and the players were soon at the hand of hand stage approaching the money bubble. After what seemed like an age the bubble finally burst but instead of one player exiting, there were three! Bryan Devonshire, Klein Bach and Charles Teplite all busted out at the same time meaning they would share 2/3 of 54th and 53rd place money, totally around $3,159 each.

Slowly but surely the field thinned and when Mimi Tran, former partner of Barry Greennstein exited in 13th place when her AcJs was no match for Zachary Humphrey's AsKc all-in preflop, it marked the exit of the tournament's last remaining female player and meant only four more players needed to lose before they could set the final table and get some much needed rest.

That time finally came when almost 13 hours after play began Lee Vlastaris entered a preflop raising war with Karlo Lopez during the Fixed limit round and then was all-in by the turn on a board reading KcTh7dJs. Lopez was well in front having flopped a set of kings meaning Vlastaris needed a queen and only a queen on the river but it was not meant to be and the six of diamonds fell instead.

That pot awarded the chip lead to Lopez but when the players return to the felt at 1400 Las Vegas time (2200 UK Time) all eyes will be on last year's November Nine member Ylon Schwartz and high Stakes Poker regular Barry Greenstein.