Will Demidov win the WSOP Main Event in 2008?(credit: Wikipedia)
The 2008 World Series of Poker was supposed to get underway at 10.00 am at the Penn & Teller room at the Rio in Las Vegas. The action was delayed slightly. The reigning WSOP Main Event champion, Jerry Yang, warmed up the crowd starting around 10.20 am and joked that he set a record as the “longest reigning champion in the world!” Of course, that’s true considering the 2008 Main Event, like it or not, was delayed by a full 117 days from the time it was set.
So what’s another hour or so, right?
A little after 10.30 the players came out and unbagged their chips. Jack Effel came out soon thereafter and announced the players by seat number. Kelly Kim’s contingent shouted “Let’s double up!” The short stack at the table desperately needs to do just that.
At 11.09 am local time, Jerry Yang announced the words the world has waited so long to hear, “Shuffle up and deal!”
The adjusted final table payouts with interest are:
1st Place $9,152,416
2nd Place $5,809,595
3rd Place $4,517,773
4th Place $3,774,974
5th Place $3,096,768
6th Place $2,418,562
7th Place $1,772,650
8th Place $1,288,217
(Remember – everyone already received the ninth place payout!)
Kelly Kim took the first pot after moving all in from the button. Everyone else folded to him so he collected the blinds and antes which isn’t bad considering they’re at the breakneck level of 120k/240k with a 30k ante.
On the 13th hand, the table finally saw a flop, Demidov raised it up and Scott Montgomery took it down. Soon after, Ylon Schwartz went all-in and Montgomery, the uber-aggressive Canuck thought about calling but wisely folded. Montgomery’s stack is below 11 million right now. Schwartz also moved against Phillips and took some chips from the former chip leader.
Yes, former Russian wunderkind Ivan Demidov, the third place finisher at the 2008 WSOPE Main Event, has overtaken the lead from Dennis Phillips. On hand #18 the two titans at the table tussled and Phillips bled away a good portion of his stack to the youngster.
Of course, there’s still a lot more action to report and we’ll have more updates later in the day!
Here’s how the stacks looked right before the players went to break:
- Ivan Demidov: 22,570,000
- Dennis Phillips: 21,685,000
- Peter Eastgate: 20,375,000
- Scott Montgomery: 18,295,000
- Ylon Schwartz: 18,285,000
- Darus Suharto: 13,805,000
- Craig Marquis: 10,130,000
- David "Chino" Rheem: 9,380,000
- Kelly Kim: 2,340,000
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