PokerNews has a pretty cool new(ish) feature on YouTube called “Hand of the Day” — where they get two players to break down a specific tournament situation in a relatively interesting way. In this episode, they talk to Bryan Devonshire and Noah Boeken about an unusual hand in $1,500 Limit Hold’em where the dealer dropped the stub and exposed three cards from the bottom of the deck:

Carris Outduels Somerville in Shootout

Jeffrey Carris was the last one standing in the $1,500 NL Holdem Shootout besting Jason Somerville in a brief heads-up battle as noted by Dan in the post below me. Carris collects over $300,000, while Somerville settles for nearly $200,000 in tournament winnings.

BKiCe BKiCe Baby, Too Cold

19 players return to the Rio at 1pm today in the $1,500 NL Holdem event, with Anirudh Seth or Seth Anirudh, listed in the chip counts as Andy Seth, better known as BKiCe online is the current chip leader with 1,407,000. Notables remaining include: Alan Jaffray (1,193,000), November Nine bubble boy Dean Hamrick (629,000), British actor Michael Greco (546,000) , and a triumvirate of Houstonians (Pete Vilandos – 325,000, Roberto Correa – 309,000 and Ali Davoudi – 254,000).
This final table of this event of this event is scheduled to appear at Bluff or wsop.pkr.com for international viewers, but that could change if the other final table for today gets there first.

Omaha 8/Stud 8 a real page “Turner”

Jon Turner will lead the 14 players back to complete the $2,500 Omaha 8/Stud 8 event, also resume at 1pm today. Turner will start with 465,000 in chips followed by notables Carlos Mortensen (328,000), Blair Rodman (290,000), Steve Wong (226,000), Phil Ivey (161,000) and Chad Brown (23,000).

Von Halle of Fame for Jon?

$1,500 Limit Holdem resumes at 2pm today with 124 players vying for the final nine seats, with Jon Von Halle the current chip leader at 68,300. Some of the notables looking to make some money back on their investment include: Bill Chen (60,600), Justin Bonomo (44,800), Richard Brodie (41,500), Nikki Harris (39,400), and Bryan Devonshire (34,100).

PLO 8 is Great for Newitt

Jason Newitt (185,900) is the chip leader at the end of Day 1 in the $5,000 PLO 8 or Better event. He’ll join 58 others at 2pm to play down to the final table with notables such as Andy Black (97,000), Jeff Lisandro (92,000), Daniel Negreanu (78,300), Barry Shulman (49,800), Phil Ivey (40,800) still in contention.

Return of the Donkament and Heads-Up!

Saturday brings two more events to the tournament roster starting with yet another version of the $1,500 NL Holdem event as another 2,500+ being put through the grinder to see which donks survive today. Last year’s version of this particular donkament was won by Jesper Hougaard in a field of 2,447. Hougaard also won a bracelet last year at the WSOP Europe, so could another double be in the offing for this year’s winner? The WSOP Staff Guide projected a field of 2,534, but expect closer to 2800 to enter when play starts at 12pm today.

The $10,000 NL Holdem Heads-Up World Championship also starts today with a capacity field of 256 expected when play starts at 5pm. Kenny Tran is the defending champion in this event, winning over $530,000 last year. Winners of the 5pm matches will return at 10pm for round 2.

More updates during the day at Pokerati, and for other live update coverage, check out www.wsop.com starting at 12pm PT.

Yeah, it’s about as exciting as the title of this post.

Some kidding aside, maybe a tournament with only 373 players is a bit of a downer from the massive tournaments at the WSOP this summer. And it should be noted that last year’s attendance at the WPT Legends main event was 485, which makes for a pretty significant drop-off in just one year. Sure, there were a few players who are on their way to Macau for the APT and APPT but not enough to make up the difference. Maybe people are just flat-ass broke from the WSOP.

The vibe at the Bicycle Casino was a positive one, though, as the big names rolled in and seemed genuinely happy to see each other. As Bryan Devonshire said, “It’s like a class reunion!” Most players seemed in good spirits, but more due to the juicy cash games going on at Commerce and possibly Hustler casinos. Freddy Deeb told me that the games were so good at Commerce that he’s been in L.A. for three weeks playing them and hesitated to even come over to the Bike for Legends. (He busted on Day 2 and was excited to get back to his deuce-to-seven single draw game.)

Going into Day 3 today, Adam Weinraub leads the pack of 79 players, after also leading after Day 1A. The name might sound familiar, as he took down the WPT Invitational two years ago at Commerce. He owns a company here in Orange County so doesn’t play on the circuit regularly, but he does like to get in a tournament in L.A. or Vegas when he can. And, I must say, that he is a fantastically friendly and humble guy. Go Adam!

Other big names in the top ten today include Matt Keikoan, Max Pescatori, Mark Seif, and Marco Johnson. Players will hit the money today – top 36 players get paid – and they should be down to 27 by the end of the night.

Wrapping up yesterday’s action, with a preview of today’s tournament (with a moment of silence for John Bonetti):

The $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed event finally reached their final table at around 5:30am, now they have to attempt to get some rest before returning in front of the watchful eye of the ESPN360 cameras at 2pm with this sextet:

Seat 4: Richard Lyndaker 2,345,000
Seat 3: Joe Commisso 1,961,000
Seat 5: Tom Lutz 1,493,000
Seat 1: Samuel Trickett 1,045,000
Seat 6: Edward Ochana 928,000
Seat 2: Davidi Kitai 298,000

The $1,500 Stud Eight or Better stopped play with 13 players remaining as they play down to a winner starting at 3pm. Here’s the approximate chip counts of the baker’s dozen (chip counts and seats to be rearranged later):

(Table 14)
Seat 1: Ryan Hughes 73,000
Seat 4: Margaret Macre 173,000
Seat 5: James Richburg 274,000
Seat 6: Ron Long 33,000
Seat 7: David Brooker 45,000
Seat 8: Daniel Nicewander 41,000

(Table 15)
Seat 1: Mike Hefer 71,000
Seat 2: Tim D’Alessandro 82,000
Seat 3: David Sklansky 110,000
Seat 4: Thomas Hunt III 101,000
Seat 6: Alessio Isaia 172,000
Seat 7: Joshua Feldman 121,000
Seat 8: Jonas Klausen 346,000

Other tournament action (plus the final 24 in the $50k HORSE) on page 2:
More…

Courtesy of the World Poker Tour

The WPT World Poker Challenge wrapped up in Reno this evening.

David Pham attempted to claim his first WPT win after finishing third in the same event in 2007. Lee Markholt was at his first WPT final table in 15 cashes – six in the current WPT season alone – and tried to seize the moment. Bryan Devonshire was going for his first major tournament win after a second place finish at the 2007 WSOP.

In the end, Markholt beat Bryan Devonshire in heads-up action in only two hands. Not sure who wanted that title more, but Markholt clearly had the chip advantage that allowed him to take it so quickly.

The final results of the final table were:

1st place: Lee Markholt – $493,815
2nd place: Bryan Devonshire – $271,625
3rd place: Zachary Hyman – $149,862
4th place: Jason Potter – $103,030
5th place: David Pham – $93,664
6th place: Jeff DeWitt – $84,297

Congrats to Lee! And congrats to Devo for an admirable run at the title!

All of the details of the final table can be read over at WPT Live Updates.

Side note: Last year’s World Poker Challenge brought 425 players out for the $5k buy-in event. This year, the buy-in was raised to $7500, and only 261 players entered. Thus, the small prize pool and payouts. Coincidentally – or not – Reno was not on the recently-released Season VII WPT schedule.