The World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2015 kicked off on Wednesday with the $565 Casino Employees event and a $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event. In the Casino Employees tournament Brandon Barnette defeated a field of 688 to win the first bracelet of the series but the $5,000 event is down to the final 20 players aswell.
The WSOP kicked off on Wednesday after WSOP vice president Jack Effel’s opening speech in the Brasilia room of the Rio Casino.
688 players registered for Event #1, the $565 Casino Employees NLHE tournament, creating a prize pool of $344.000, the chip leader at the end of Day 1 was Stephen Gilbert.
422 players registered for Event #2, a $5,000 NLHE tournament, creating a prize pool of $1.983.400 and the field was star-studded with WSOP Main Event defending champion Martin Jacobson, Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Jason Koon and Doug "WCGRider" Polk all battling for the $466.120 first place prize. By the end of Day 1, Darryl Ronconi built the biggest stack but Ludovic Geilich, Joe "ender555" Ebanks and Martin Jacobson have all built big stacks.
51 players returned for Day 2 of the Casino Employees event and with 10 remaining the players sat together.
Seat 1. Brandon Barnette – 745.000
Seat 2. Zachary Seufert – 255.000
Seat 3. Michael Kahn – 600.000
Seat 4. Craig Lahr – 40.000
Seat 5. Chris Jones – 140.000
Seat 6. Aiping Xue – 365.000
Seat 7. Gary Kochalka – 200.000
Seat 8. Thomas McFadden – 120.000
Seat 9. Greg Seiden – 600.000
Seat 10. Phi Tran – 205.000
Craig Lahr finished in 10th place and was soon followed by Jones, Tran and McFadden with Kahn and Seiden eliminating two players each. Xue, the only female player at the final table busted in 6th after her A5 couldn’t improve against Kochalka’s 8-8.
Kahn, who held the chip lead for a long time at the final table busted after 3betting T-3 offsuit from the small blind against Barnette, then jamming all-in on a A-8-Q flop with two hearts. Barnette snap-called with K-T of hearts and held up.
Two hands later Kochalka was also eliminated and heads-up play started with the elimination of Seufert.
Brandon Barnette – 2.520.000
Greg Seiden: 885.000
The heads-up lasted 32 hands, in the final hand Seiden raised to 140,000 then called all-in on Level 29 (30k/60k-10k ante) with 4-4. Unfortunately for him, he was dominated by Barnette’s 8-8 and couldn’t improve on the T-2-K-K-8 board.
1. Brandon Barnette – $75.704
2. Greg Seiden – $46.735
3. Zachary Seufert – $30.382
4. Gary Kochalka – $22.315
5. Michael Kahn – $16.622
6. Aiping Xue – $12.542
7. Thomas McFadden – $9.573
8. Phi Tran – $7.389
9. Chris Jones – $5.762
10. Craig Lahr – $4.530
171 players returned for Day 2 of Event #2 $5,000 NLHE and the field was stacked with big names.
The field reached the paying spots on Level 18 (3k/6k-1k ante) and after the bubble burst plenty of big names were eliminated, including Felix Stephensen, Tony Gregg, Brain Hastings, Jeremy Ausmus, Andy Frankenberger and Jesse Martin, who was the final elimination of the day.
There are 20 players left, the chip leader is Carl Westcott with 1.066.000 chips, but Artur Koren, Greg Merson, David "Doc" Sands, Jason Wheeler, Bryn Kenney, Joe "ender555" Ebanks and Kevin MacPhee are also still in contest for the $466.120 first place prize.
Event #2 $5,000 NLHE chipcount
1. Carl Westcott – 1.066.000
2. Artur Koren – 1.062.000
3. Greg Merson – 800.000
4. David Sands – 704.000
5. Jason Wheeler – 683.000
6. Long Nguyen – 659.000
7. Michael Wang – 653.000
8. Barry Hutter – 609.000
9. Bryn Kenney – 596.000
10. Corrie Wunstel – 526.000
11. Rong Li – 477.000
12. Amir Lehavot – 473.000
13. Byron Kaverman – 372.000
14. Steve Merrifield – 337.000
15. Michael Brenden – 327.000
16. Jack Schanbacher – 318.000
17. Joe Ebanks – 301.000
18. Alex Bolotin – 271.000
19. Kevin MacPhee – 178.000
20. Nam Le – 155.000
