WSOP 2008 Main Event, End of Day 5 Results and Report

2008 World Series of Poker
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada

Event #54
World Championship
No-Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $ 10,000
Number of Entries: 6,844
Total Net Prize Pool: $64,333,600
Number of Places Paid: 666
First Place Prize: $9,119,517
Total Players Remaining: 79
July 3 - November 10, 2008

Tournament Notes from Day Five

Nine days ago, the World Series of Poker Main Event began on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008. The official Day Five was played on Saturday, July 12th.

This is the 45th of a 47-day span which comprises the vast majority of the 2008 WSOP schedule (not including WSOP-Europe, which takes place September 19th through October 2nd and the Main Event final table to be played November 9-10).

Day Five began with the “Shuffle Up and Deal” announcement at 12:10 pm PST. The night before, tournament play had been suspended earlier than expected. Therefore, Day Five began with 38:47 remaining in Level 19 (5,000-10,000 blinds with a 1,000 ante).

The number of players who started Day Five was 189.

ESPN designated two “feature” tables. The table on the main stage included three-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Mike Matusow. The secondary feature table was located off to the side and included five-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Allen Cunningham. Tables were changed multiple times during the day.

All seat assignments and re-draws at the WSOP are completely random. However, ESPN selects “feature” tables each day, which are presumably tables with the greatest public interest. Those two tables are then transferred to the main and secondary stages.

The average stack at the start of the day was 760,000 in chips.

The average stack at the end of the day is 1,732,000 in chips.

Phil Hellmuth was the only former WSOP Main Event champion to continue play on Day Five. He also survived the day. He currently ranks in 66th place, with 721,000 in chips.

The number of players remaining out of the initial 189 players who started on Day Five is 79. This means only 42 percent of the field survived from the start of the day. Less than 2 percent of the field remains among those who started this tournament.

The chip leader coming into the start of Day Four was Jeremy Joseph (Buffalo, NY). He is now ranked ninth in chips, with 3,100,000.

The first player to cross the 5,000,000-chip mark was Mark Ketteringham (Los Angeles, CA). He currently ranks as the End of Day Five chip leader, with 5,800,000.

Nikolay Losev (Moscow, Russia) is in second place with 4,058,000.

Day Five started with five female players still alive in the tournament. Three were eliminated over the next 11 hours and 40 minutes. As Day Six begins, there are still two female players remaining in the Main Event. They are -- Tiffany Michelle (Los Angeles, CA) currently in 4th place, and Lisa Parsons (Franklin, TN) in 71st place. It is estimated that 209 female players participated in the 2008 WSOP Main Event.

Former WSOP gold bracelet winners who were eliminated on this day included – Hoyt Corkins, Jon Friedberg, Allen Cunningham, Jeff Madsen, and Mark Vos.

Mark Vos was eliminated on the final hand of the night.

Only five former WSOP gold bracelet winners are still in contention. This short list includes – Phi Nguyen, Brandon Cantu, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, and Thomas “Thunder” Keller.

All players who started play on Day Five were guaranteed at least $38,600 in prize money. All players who begin Day Six are now guaranteed at least $77,200.

Coming into this year’s WSOP, the current longest streak of cashes in the Main Event was held by Theodore Park – with three. He cashed again this year, finishing in 284th place. Park now has four consecutive cashes in the Main Event – the longest current streak of anyone.

Andrew Brooks (Catonsville, MD) is severely short stacked entering Day Six. However, Brooks has now cashed in three consecutive WSOP Main Events.

WSOP Academy instructor Alex Outhred played on this day. He survived and currently ranks 67th in the chip count.

On the final hand of Day Five, Phil Hellmuth was given a one round penalty by the Tournament Director. He violated a WSOP rule which forbids berating another player. Following a verbal warning, Hellmuth continued to criticize his opponent following a major confrontation. Accordingly, he was penalized for breaking the rule. Hellmuth will be forced to sit out the first nine hands of play on Day Six.

There are 12 different nations represented among the Day Five survivors. Nations still alive with players include: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Venezuela, and the United States.

There are 19 non-American players out of the remaining 79 in the field, which means 24 percent of the players still in contention are international players.

Players from several nations are represented in the top 100 of the Main Event for the first time ever. This list of new countries to the WSOP family of nations includes Romania (with two players still alive), Venezuela, and Brazil (with one player each).

Perhaps the greatest rags-to-riches story of the Main Event thus far is the skyrocketing success of Alfredo Fernandez. He qualified to play in the WSOP via a mega-satellite tournament series at the website www.games.com, which is owned by America Online (AOL). Fernandez entered a free online tournament series, which was played over several weeks. In fact, he defeated 2,396 other players and won his $10,000 entry into this year’s Main Event. Incredibly, Fernandez now ranks 10th in the chip count.

Play was suspended after the completion of Level 23. Day Five concluded at 11:40 pm PST.

Day Six begins Sunday, July 13th at 12:00 noon.

When play resumes on Day Six, Level 24 will begin with blinds set at 15,000-30,000 and antes at 4,000.

Day Six is scheduled to play down to the final 27 players. This means play will end at the point three tables are reached.

An interesting bit of trivia: The player who has outlasted more competitors in the main event than any other player over the last two years is – Hevad Khan. Khan has cashed twice and outlasted 12,974 players in the 2007 and 2008 Main Events combined, which is more than any player in that time span.

More trivia: Only one female player has ever cashed in the Main Event in consecutive years. Veronica Dabul finished 235th this year, and 314th last year, which makes her the only female to accomplish this feat in the 39-year history if the WSOP.

All players began this tournament with 20,000 in chips. The breakdown of denominations on Day One meant that each player began with 29 separate chips. Now, most players have hundreds of chips in their stacks. The denominations in play now range from 1,000 up to 25,000. Once the final table is reached, a new 250,000 chip will be introduced into play for the first time ever. Incredibly, each of these chips will represent 12.5 total buy-ins, or $130,000 out of the prize pool. Note: The official WSOP website made the astute observation that if there were no chip color ups in this tournament, the average player would have about 2,500 total chips in each stack, enough to completely engulf every poker table remaining in play.

This is the largest World Series of Poker in history. A grand total of 58,720 players entered into 5 5 gold bracelet events surpassed last year’s number of entries, which was 54,288. These figures represent an 8 percent increase over 2007.

This was the richest World Series of Poker in history. A grand total of $180,676,248 in prize money awarded in 2008 makes this the richest event in all of sports. Note: This figure does not include the upcoming four events to be played at WSOP-Europe. These figures represent an increase of 13 percent over 2007.

This ranks as the second-largest live poker tournament in history. This year’s turnout surpassed 2007 attendance (6,358) by 7.4 percent. Only the 2006 WSOP Main Event was larger than this tournament -- with 8,773 entrants.

This is the second-largest tournament prize pool in history. The total prize pool amounts to $64,333,600. The top 666 finishers will collect prize money.

There were at least 118 different nations and territories represented by all players who entered the 2008 Main Event. By contrast, there were 87 different countries present last year. This represents a 36 percent increase in international participation.

The 2008 WSOP Main Event winner will collect $9,119,517 in prize money. The minimum payout is $21,230.

The full payout list for the Main Event (all places) is as follows:

End of Day Five (Standings)

In-the-Money Finishers (to date)