News / nono / 25 June 2008 / Leave a comment

19 facts about the WSOP Event 41, $2,500 Mixed Hold'em, which saw the 7th Amateur win, that you may not have known.

• The $1,500 buy-in Mixed Hold'em championship (Event #41) attracted 731 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $997,815. The top 72 finishers collected prize money.

• Mixed Hold'em includes a rotation of two games - Limit Hold'em and No-Limit Hold'em. Each game is played for 30 minutes at a time.

• Entries for this event increased 18 percent over last year when there were 620 participants. This was only the second year this event (Mixed Hold'em) has been offered.

• The tournament was played over three consecutive days.

• Fred Goldberg, who won this event in 2007, did not enter this tournament. This brings the current streak to 41 straight non-cashes for defending champions in their respective events.

• The final table included players from five different nations. Countries represented included - Canada, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, and the United States.

• The second-place finisher was Jonathan Tamayo, from Houston, TX. He recently graduated from Cornell University with a degree in hotel management. "I'm still unemployed," he said.

• Michael Chu, who won a WSOP gold bracelet in 2007, finished in eighth place.

• Nick Binger took third place. This was Binger's fifth cash in two years at the WSOP and first final table appearance.

• Other former WSOP gold bracelet winners who cashed in this event included Todd Witteles (10th) and Alexander Borteh (20th).

• Through Event #41, only two players have made three final table appearances - Jacobo Fernandez and David Benyamine.

• Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow, Russia is the only player at this year's WSOP who has cashed seven times - just one off the all-time record mark. Evdakov is positioned to break the record set for "Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year," shared by five players -- Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth (2006), Richard Tatalovich (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006), with eight.

• Winner Frank Gary is officially listed as being from Fort Meyers, FL. Through the conclusion of Event #41 at this year's World Series of Poker, the gold bracelet count by nations and states reads as follows:
10 - Nevada
7 - California
4 - New York
2 - Canada
2 - Germany
2 - Italy
2 - Missouri
1 - Belgium
1 - Denmark
1 - Florida
1 - France
1 - Georgia
1 - Holland
1 - Maryland
1 - Michigan
1 - Pennsylvania
1 - Russia
1 - South Carolina
1 - Wisconsin

• Nine different nations have produced a gold bracelet winner at this year's WSOP. This list now includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Russia, and the United States.

• The Event #41 winner Frank Gary is to be classified as an amateur poker player since he retired recently and has no significant record of tournament finishes. Accordingly, the "Pro-Am" gold bracelet scoreboard currently reads:
Professionals - 32 wins
Amateurs - 7 wins
Semi-Pros - 2 wins

• Jonathan Tamayo was the chip leader at the End of Day One for this event. He finished as the runner up. Hence, through Event #41, the End of Day One chip leaders have gone on to cash 77 percent of the time -- 30 of 39 occasions (the chip leader was not applicable on two events). Twelve of these same 39 chip leaders (31 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.

• Mats Gavatin was the chip leader at the start of this final table. He ended up as the seventh-place finisher. Through Event #41, seventeen of 39 chip leaders at the start of the final table (44 percent) went on to win the event. Twenty-three of 39 chip leaders (60 percent) went on to finish in the top three spots. Two events did not have a chip leader (Heads-Up and Shootout tournaments).

• It should be noted that the Milwaukee's Best Light "Player of the Year" rankings will now include points accrued from the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. championship.

• David Benyamine is now the leader on the 2008 prize money list, having won the most money at the WSOP, to date. His accrued winnings total $941,651.