LAS VEGAS–We\’ve got a doozy brewing in the final points event of the 2007 WSOP … with much more on the line than a single bracelet in the $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball w/ Rebuys.
With 60 players remaining …
Tom Schneider, WSOP Player of the Year points leader, is currently 3rd in chips. Jeff Lisandro, who is only 20 points behind him, is currently 4th in chips. (Phil Hellmuth is also still alive in 2-7 Lowball, but he is a below-average stack, and has never made a WSOP final table in a non-hold\’em game … so not much of a threat.)
UPDATE: Players are on dinner break, and Lisandro has jumped into the chip lead. Tom is 6th in chips. Also kinda interesting that Tony G — the man behind the money behind PokerNews.com — is second in chips. Wonder if it\’s too late for Tom to hire someone to pull a Nancy Kerrigan on Lisandro\’s ass.
Lisandro reportedly wants Player of the Year so badly that he was willing to invest $100k in this event. Tom took a more fiscally conservative approach — taking a rebuy and double add-on for $20,000 total.
Not only does WSOP Player of the Year come with a certain amount of cache, but also it comes with extra cash. The winner receives an automatic buy-in to next year\’s main event ($10,000), a buy-in to a circuit main event of his choice ($5,000), entry into the WSOP Europe main event ($10,000), and $5,000 in walking-around-money … adding up to a mano-y-mano lasts-longest battle for essentially a $30,000 overlay and any added business goodies that go with Player of the Year accolades.
If Tom were to bust out now, and Lisandro finished 8th, for example, he would overtake Tom for the title. Not sure how the math works out for different positional possibilities — say Tom were to get 8th and Lisandro took 4th — but I can say most assuredly that we have a lot at stake as these two clearly focussed contenders navigate through a field of world-class remaining players.