WSOP 2008 Event #35, $1,500 Seven Card Stud, Final Results and Report

Number of Entries: 381
Total Net Prize Pool: $ 520,065
June 18-20, 2008

Final Results

Tournament Notes

The $1,500 buy-in Seven-Card Stud championship attracted 381 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $520,065. The top 40 finishers (final five tables) collected prize money.

Seven-Card Stud first debuted at the WSOP back in 1973. Puggy Pearson was the very first champion.

Six players in WSOP history own two gold bracelets in Seven-Card Stud. They are Johnny Moss, Bones Berland, Marty Sigel, Ted Forrest, Mel Judah, and Men “the Master” Nguyen.

Artie Cobb is the only player in WSOP history who has won three gold bracelets in Seven-Card Stud. Cobb played in this year’s event, but did not cash. Note: Cobb’s fourth gold bracelet came in Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split – which more precisely gives him four wins in Stud.

Other former Seven-Card Stud winners include two poker legends, Stu Ungar and Chip Reese.

Last year’s champion Michael Keiner, from Germany, played in this event. But he did not cash. This brings the current streak to 35 straight non-cashes for defending champions in their respective events.

The 2008 $1,500 buy-in Seven-Card Stud champion is Mike Rocco, from Las Vegas, NV. He is a 48-year-old professional poker player, who by his own admission has been going through some rough times lately. Rocco was born in Cleveland, OH.

Incredibly, Rocco won his way into this event by winning a $215 single-table satellite.

Rocco collected $135,753 for first place. He also earned his first WSOP gold bracelet.

Rocco has been playing professionally since 1997. He mostly concentrates on middle limit cash games in the Los Angeles area. Rocco prefers Seven-Card Stud to Hold’em and for that reason tends to play more in California, where there is more Seven-Card Stud action.

Rocco first came to Las Vegas in the early 1980s. He began working as a blackjack dealer at the Dunes Casino and Hotel (the site where the Bellagio now stands).

Rocco had tears in his eyes in a post-tournament interview when he was asked about his 5-year-old son, Oliver. “He means everything to me,” Rocco said. “This (gold bracelet) is for him.”

“I can’t say enough about my friends,” Rocco said as he pointed to fellow poker pros Jeffrey Lisandro and Cycndy Violette who watched the entire final table match. “I got more phone calls from my friends in the last two days than the last two months – and I don’t even owe them money!”

The second-place finisher was Al Barbieri, a.k.a. “Sugar Bear.” Barbieri is a heavy sports gambler. His poker mentor is three-time WSOP gold bracelet winner John Bonetti.

The final table lasted nearly nine hours. The heads-up match went for about three hours.

At age 79, Jack D’Agostino became the oldest player to make it to a WSOP final table in an open event since Pete Kaufman (age 80) accomplished the feat in 2004. D’Agostino ended up as the fifth-place finisher.

Former WSOP gold bracelet winner Andre Boyer finished in seventh place.

Sabyl Cohen-Landrum finished in 12th place. She was the highest female finisher in the 2006 WSOP Main Event (56th). Note: All records should be corrected to reflect that Sabyl Cohen-Landrum has previously been listed as Sabyl Cohen, before her marriage. She has also been listed as “Susan Cohen” and Sabyl Landrum” in various poker archives. She prefers this to be changed at all sites and records to: SABYL COHEN-LANDRUM.

Former WSOP gold bracelet winner John “World” Hennigan finished in 35th place.

Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow, Russia cashed again (in Event #34). He is now the only player this year who has cashed seven times – just one off the all-time record mark. Evdakov is positioned to break the record set for “Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year,” shared by four players -- Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth, Jr. (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006), with eight.

The Milwaukee’s Best Light “Player of the Year” standings currently shows a dead heat between two top poker pros -- Erick Lindgren and Barry Greenstein. However, upset-minded Jacobo Fernandez is expected to move into the points lead following his cash in another event on this day. For a complete list of the leaders, see: http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/players/2008.asp?sort=poypts

Through Event #35, only one player has made three final table appearances – Jacobo Fernandez. Fifteen players have made two WSOP final table appearances, to date. This list includes – Chris Bjorin, Andy Bloch, David Benyamine, Alex Bolotin, Scott Clements, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, Fu Wong, Erick Lindgren, Minh Ly, Daniel Negreanu, David Singer, J.C. Tran, Theo Tran, and Tim West.

Through the conclusion of Event #35 at this year’s World Series of Poker, the gold bracelet count by nations and states reads as follows:
10 – Nevada
6 – California
4 – New York
2 – Canada
2 – Germany
2 – Italy
2 – Missouri
1 – Holland
1 – Maryland
1 – Michigan
1 – Pennsylvania
1 – Russia
1 – South Carolina
1 – Wisconsin

The Event #35 winner Michael Rocco is to be classified as a professional, since he has been playing for a living since 1997. Accordingly, through the conclusion of Event #35, the “Pro-Am” gold bracelet scoreboard reads:
Professionals – 28 wins
Amateurs -- 5 wins
Semi-Pros -- 2 wins

Leonardo Ebeling was the chip leader at the End of Day One for this event. However, he did not cash. Hence, through Event #35, the End of Day One chip leaders have gone on to cash 76 percent of the time -- 25 of 33 occasions (the chip leader was not applicable on two events). Nine of these same 33 chip leaders (27 percent) made it to the final table. Only one chip leader went on to win the event. That lone wire-to-wire winner was Vanessa Selbst in Event #19.

Michael Rocco was the chip leader at the start of this final table. He ended up as the winner. Through Event #35, fourteen of 32 chip leaders at the start of the final table (43 percent) went on to win the event. Twenty of 32 chip leaders (63 percent) went on to finish in the top three spots. Two events did not have a chip leader (Heads-Up and Shootout tournaments).

CORRECTION: The report for Event #33 contained an error. One former WSOP gold bracelet winner was omitted from the text. Please note that Michael Keiner (from Germany) won the 2007 Seven-Card Stud event. Accordingly, the previous text should read as follows:

Ruthenberg becomes the second German national to win at the WSOP this year. He also becomes only the sixth German ever to win a gold bracelet, following Matthias Rohnacher (1997), Eddy Scharf (2001 and 2003), Katja Thater (2007), Michael Keiner (2007), and Jen Voertmann (2008).