But before it came to a close, the field of 362 Main Event players had to be trimmed down considerably. The number of players in this year’s Main Event matched the amount seen in the 2007 WSOPE Main Event. Among the 362 competitors from this year that made the trip to London included Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, John Juanda, Phil Ivey, Patrick Antonius, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Antonio Esfandiari, Kathy Liebert, Barry Greenstein, and Phil Hellmuth – who arrived in a limousine with 12 models!

Advertisement

Hellmuth and his models would be staying another day as he made it through Day 1a along with players like Matusow, Andy Bloch, Joe Hachem, and Erica Schoenberg. On the Day 1b side of things, Daniel Negreanu survived in a big way and turned out to be the overall chip leader while Roland De Wolfe, Jennifer Tilly, Nenad Medic, and Brian Townsend all made it through as well. Defending WSOPE Main Event champion Annette Obrestad was not one of the players to make it through this day though.

Day 2 brought 179 players back who were all looking to make a big cash. Phil Hellmuth would not be making any sort of cash though as he was sent packing to the limousine on this day along with Joe Hachem, Chris Ferguson, Scotty Nguyen, and Doyle Brunson. A lot of people were relieved to see Hellmuth leave London since he had been ranting and raving over bad cards, berating other players, and dispensing advice to others like he was a poker god ever since he arrived at the WSOPE.

The Hellmuth-less Day 3 began with Andy Bloch holding the chip lead and Brian Townsend trailing behind him in second. Only 18 of the original 62 players who began this day would move onto the final two tables. Those who would be among the 44 players not to move on would be Dave Ulliot, Phil Laak, and Josh Arieh. John Juanda and Daniel Negreanu finished at the top of the chip count when the day was over with.

The final table would be comprised on Day 4 of the WSOPE Main Event and the biggest surprise to make it there would be Ivan Demidov. The Russian who’s already a member of the WSOP final table that will play out in November quietly made his way to yet another final table in the WSOPE. And this is a first! As for the others who made the final table and their chip counts, here they are:

John Juanda £1,349,000
Stanislav Alekhin £1,278,000
Ivan Demidov £1,006,000
Daniel Negreanu £1,002,000
Robin Keston £849,000
Scott Fischman £732,000
Toni Hiltunen £386,000
Bengt Sonnert £385,000
Chris Elliott £281,000

Chris Elliot didn’t last too long with his short stack and was the first player off of the final table after Alekhin knocked him out. Toni Hiltunen was the next person to go while Robin Keston was not far behind him after Demidov made a set of 9’s on the turn. And as quickly as that, the table was down to six-handed play.

Scott Fischman thought his chances were pretty good before the flop as he held a pair of aces, however, he had no idea that Alekhin flopped a straight and Fischman was eliminated in 6th place. Alekhin’s next victim was Daniel Negreanu who got nothing to go with his A-9 combo against Stanislav’s pocket jacks. And yet again Stanislav Alekhin found someone to go all-in against him when Sonnert shoved to avoid being eaten by the blinds.

Now down to three players, Alekhin, Juanda, and Demidov battled for quite some time before another player hit the rail. It would be Demidov who would crack first though as he got nothing from the board against the pocket aces of John Juanda. After Demidov’s third place elimination, a grueling 7 hour heads-up match would ensue between Juanda and Alekhin.

Juanda held the advantage with 4.4 million chips to about 2.9 million chips in Alehkin’s stack. The match went back and forth and raged on until 10 in the morning when Alehkin was forced to called with A-9 against Juanda’s K-6 because of his dwindling stack. Juanda got two 6’s while Alehkin received nothing. The epic heads-up play ended with Juanda cashing for ?868,800 while Alehkin earned ?533,900 for getting second place.