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.

Tom, at the WPT World Poker Challenge in Reno …

Photo: World Poker Tour

Shirt says:

Doh!
Nuts!
Mmm, Donuts …

… at the World Poker Challenge at the Grand Sierra in Reno, finishing 28th out of 261. Ouch. But not all is lost for the Arizona Posse … Tom may have gone out early on Day 2, but the crew’s other double-bracelet holder Pat Poels is still alive and well — with a slightly below average stack.

Click here to follow the Day 3 action — where because of legally questionable exclusive media deals, you have no choice but to read coverage from a guy who clearly would rather write in a way that reveals he can’t wait to go home (or to the tables, or the bar) as opposed to figuring out the names of fewer than 30 players left in a field?

(If it’s fair to expect NFL television announcers to know every name on two rosters, is it really too much to ask that any “reporters” know every name once a tourney gets below four tables? There are breaks, after all, where you theoretically could go find out what you don’t know by asking someone. But whatever … it’s not Pokerati’s job to bitch about crappy, uninspired coverage just because we happened to have a conversation with someone else about whether or not we have a right to post numbers and letters like the ones below and/or haven’t had our coffee yet this morning.)

And click below to see the starting stacks going in:

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They’re down to six at the WPT World Poker Challenge in Reno. Good players, too … including David Pham, JC Tran, Mark Seif, and Danny Wong (not the Wong I have on my fantasy team, but a really good Wong nonetheless). $683k to the winner — a notably smaller payout than last year … No million-dollar champion, and roughly $90k less to whomever takes over Tom’s coveted 3rd-place crown. I wonder how the fact that there are fewer chips at the final table will affect play. The WPT, of course, still seems to believe that lots of all-ins makes for exciting poker TV, which may or may not be true.

Dallas expatriate Chantel looked like she might do more-than-cash, but in the end, she went out in 48th or 49th place, with 45 getting paid. Though I’m not sure what the chip-stacks were pre-flop, the hand she busted out on might merit some discussion … (You gotta fold those queens, right?)

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So as Karridy tells us, Tom has had a successful Day 1 so far at the WPT World Poker Challenge in Reno, nearly tripling his stack. Sweet. It’s still early, so lots of people are still alive. But I couldn’t help but notice that Clonie is also kicking ass, as is Chantel McNulty* … and her old beau Dustin “Neverwin” Woolf. Juicy. And speaking of juicy, Karridy’s favorite Texas man-with-big-hands, TJ Cloutier, is alive and fine with a slightly below-average chip stack.

I wonder how many days Tom will have to survive before CardPlayer (which so far seems to have the best coverage of this event) will take note. From CP:

Sun Mar 25 12:06:00 PDT 2007
Big Names in the Field
The Big names that have already been spotted are: Barry Greenstein, Joe Sebok, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Ted Forrest, Erick Lindgren, Victor Ramdin, Barry Shulman, Chau Giang, Clonie Gowen, David Singer, David Williams, Devin Porter, Gavin Smith, JC Tran, Nam Le, James Van Alstyne, John Juanda, Layne Flack, Michael Mizrachi, Phil Laak, Ralph Perry, Sean McCabe, and Bill Edler.

UPDATE (10 pm pacific): Clonie is out. Chantel still kicking butt. Tom just took a huge hit, but I don’t know much about it, because CP doesn’t pay attention to his cards.

UPDATE UPDATE: Text from Tom (at 10:34 pm pacific) says, “Fuck everyone im out”. Yikes, dude, sorry. Interestingly, the CardPlayer Live Updates did not take note of Tom’s exit. I am typing this extra small because I don’t think this is the sorta thing he would really want to hear right now.

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