2007 WSOP Event #6

Event #6

Limit Hold’em

Buy-In: $1,500

Number of Entries: 910

Total Prize Money: $1,365,000

Date of Tournament: June 4-6, 2007

Tournament Notes:

The winner was Gary Styczynski from Pearl River, New York. He is 42-years-old and is a part-time consultant and poker player. He is married and has two children.

Styczynski arrived at the final table with the dominant stack. He had nearly half of the total chips in play when eight-handed play began. It took him about four hours to win this final battle and take home his first WSOP gold bracelet.

The new poker champ has never cashed previously at the WSOP. However, he did cash three times at a recent poker tournament held at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.

Event #6 marked the debut of the nearly-live simulcast on the official WSOP website – www.worldseriesofpoker.com. For the first time in history, the entire final table was broadcast with hole cards seen by the home audience. Expert commentary was provided by poker pro Brian Wilson (who won a WSOP gold bracelet in 2005) and ESPN’s Howard David (who is normally the radio voice of Monday Night Football).

The WSOP has certainly entered the high-tech age. For the first time ever, all of the final table competitors were sequestered behind a large tent. There was no live audience – again another WSOP first. All spectators were in cyberspace watching over the Internet. Given the wide reach of the Internet and popularity of the official WSOP website, this final table is – at least for the moment – the most widely watched “live” poker tournament ever.

Some things cannot be made up. The seventh-place finisher was a man who won $14 million in the Canadian Lottery. His name is Michael Banks.

Noted poker author and theorist David Sklansky finished 13th in this event. Sklansky, the author of numerous books and generally regarded as the supreme poker and gaming intellect in the business, owns three WSOP gold bracelets (technically, he owns two WSOP gold watches, which was the top prize at the 1982 WSOP instead of bracelets). This event was his best WSOP finish in six years (he finished fifth in an event back in 2001).

James Graham finished in fifth-place. He won a WSOP gold bracelet last year.

The eighth-place finisher was Pete O’Donnell. He quit his job to play poker for a living and moved to Las Vegas just two weeks ago. His new career is off to a good tart, to the tune of $22,359 in prize money.

Place	Player	Prize
1.	Gary Styczynski	$280,715
2.	Varouzhan Gumroyan	$177,627
3.	Hansu Chu	$114,278
4.	Soheil Shamseddin	$75,771
5.	James Gorham	$53,412
6.	Jimmy Holland	$40,991
7.	Michael Banks	$30,433
8.	Pete O'Donnell	$22,359
9.	Dariush Imani	$16,148
10.	Brandon Wong	$11,552
11.	Ken Dickensen	$11,552
12.	Jesse Martin	$11,552
13.	David Sklansky	$10,310
14.	John (Brock) Parker	$10,310
15.	Casey Peters	$10,310
16.	Derek McCoy	$9,068
17.	Tanya Lieu	$9,068
18.	Dan Barnett	$9,068
19.	Igram Hassan	$7,826
20.	Scott Lychwick	$7,826
21.	Jim Blaszkiewicz	$7,826
22.	Patrick Curran	$7,826
23.	David Arsht	$7,826
24.	Bennett Kleinberg	$7,826
25.	Michael Sun	$7,826
26.	Joshua Haddad	$7,826
27.	Steven Cauley	$7,826
28.	Tien Le	$6,708
29.	Kurt Maier	$6,708
30.	Jason Bethune	$6,708
31.	Paul Bucy	$6,708
32.	Todd Keikoan	$6,708
33.	Steven Mandelbaum	$6,708
34.	Marco Johnson	$6,708
35.	Mike Pickett	$6,708
36.	Mark Jones	$6,708
37.	Chris Russell	$5,714
38.	Charles Indyg	$5,714
39.	Aaron Smith	$5,714
40.	Christopher Lamell	$5,714
41.	Nhu Huynh	$5,714
42.	Tam (Tommy) Hang	$5,714
43.	Richard Schwartz	$5,714
44.	Steven Rothstein	$5,714
45.	John Robertson	$5,714
46.	Abraham Levy	$4,844
47.	James Guill	$4,844
48.	Charles Furey	$4,844
49.	John Pastrana	$4,844
50.	Ronald Evans	$4,844
51.	Mark Muchnik	$4,844
52.	Suriyan Bhinestien	$4,844
53.	Ray Manlagnit	$4,844
54.	Matthew Hawrilenko	$4,844
55.	John Varner	$3,975
56.	Constantine Araneta	$3,975
57.	Merri German	$3,975
58.	Matthew Kelly	$3,975
59.	David Chin	$3,975
60.	Randall Witt	$3,975
61.	Stephen Gerhardt	$3,975
62.	Douglas Protz	$3,975
63.	Doug Morgan	$3,975
64.	Robert Goldfarb	$3,292
65.	Derek Wakamiya	$3,292
66.	Joe Deniro	$3,292
67.	Philip Schier	$3,292
68.	Leo Vergote	$3,292
69.	Mike (Champagne) Lancaster	$3,292
70.	Robert Beveridge	$3,292
71.	Minh Nguyen	$3,292
72.	John Biebel	$3,292
73.	Philong Nguyen	$2,795
74.	Ira Gibbs III	$2,795
75.	Matthew Dames	$2,795
76.	(Minneapolis) Jim Meehan	$2,795
77.	Nicholas Palmer	$2,795
78.	Benjamin Robinson	$2,795
79.	Marc Durand	$2,795
80.	Eric Nickelson	$2,795
81.	Boris Muchnik	$2,795
82.	Thor Hansen	$2,360
83.	Brad Peeples	$2,360
84.	Matt Woodward	$2,360
85.	Al Sorenson	$2,360
86.	Thom Werthmann	$2,360
87.	Dave Tobin	$2,360
88.	David Gorman	$2,360
89.	Roger Tanabe	$2,360
90.	Michael O'Malley	$2,360