WSOP History -- 2009 Recap

The 2009 World Series of Poker marked the 40th anniversary of the event and its unique history was honored throughout the summer. The first open buy-in event was a $40,000 no-limit hold’em event that attracted 201 of the best players in the world. Vitaly Lunkin won the event to take home his second gold bracelet and $1,891,012. Lunkin was the first of 39 professionals that would win bracelets during the pre-main event tournaments that summer, which was called the year of the pro. The total number of events in 2009 increased to 57 overall, and a dozen of them featured buy-ins greater than $10,000.

Highlights included a win by David Bach in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event that scored him his first bracelet and $1,276,802. He topped the smallest field in the history of the event (95 players) which would be replaced by the $50,000 Player’s Championship the next year. Other first-time bracelet winners of note included Jason Mercier, Steve Sung, Nick Schulman, Roland de Wolfe, Abe Mosseri, James Van Alstyne, Matt Hawrilenko, and Eric Baldwin. Young professionals J.C. Tran, Matt Graham, Brandon Cantu, and Daniel Alaei each won their second bracelets, but to really get noticed at the 2009 WSOP you had to win multiple bracelets in the same summer, and even then you were part of a crowd.

Brock Parker became the first player to win double bracelets when he won two six-handed hold’em events between June 7 and 10. Phil Ivey was the second player to do it when he won a $2,500 Omaha 8OB/seven-card stud 8OB event on June 13. He won his first bracelet in a $2,500 deuce-to-seven lowball event on June 4. The two bracelets took his career total up to seven, and tied him for sixth place on the all-time list with Billy Baxter, but Ivey wasn’t done there (read more below).

Jeffrey Lisandro joined the club on June 20 when he won a $10,000 seven-card stud eight-or-better world championship after booking his first bracelet at a $1,500 seven-card stud final table on June 8, but he wasn’t done there either. His third bracelet victory came on June 24 when he won a $2,500 seven-card razz event. The three bracelet victories were enough to make Lisandro the 2009 WSOP player of the year in one of the most competitive races for the award since it was created in 2004. Greg Mueller became the fourth and final member at the 2009 multiple bracelet party on June 28, when he won $1,500 limit hold’em shootout event to go with his first bracelet victory at the $10,000 limit hold’em world championship.

After one of the most exciting months of poker in the decade thanks to the professional domination of the preliminary bracelet events, 6,494 players entered the $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event. Those numbers were down from the previous year and schedule adjustments were made to the main event the next year to improve attendance. The prize pool still topped $61 million and the champion would walk away with $8,546,435. The November Nine schedule for the final table was in place once again and in 2009 the poker world had quite the final table to look forward to that autumn.

Ivey had made the final nine, as had Card Player COO Jeff Shulman, and London-based professional James Akenhead. The anticipation for the final table increased thanks to the WSOP Europe main event, which featured two November Niner finalists in Akenhead and Frenchman Antoine Saout. November Nine father and Card Player Publisher, Barry Shulman, won the WSOP Europe main event that October, which further increased the buzz surrounding his son.

Play was cautious after the long layoff for the second year in a row and the first elimination took over four hours. Akenhead matched his finish at the WSOP Europe main event and busted in ninth place. Kevin Schaffel saw his pocket aces busted by the pocket kings of Eric Buchman, who made quads and sent Schaffel home in eighth place. During the next two hours no one fell but Joe Cada did see his stack fall to 2 million before the dinner break.

Shortly after returning from dinner Ivey moved all in with A-K and Darvin Moon called him down with A-Q. Just like Chino Rheem did the year before him, Ivey busted in seventh place when his opponent came from behind and found a queen on the board to bust him. Moon also came from behind to eliminate Steven Begleiter in sixth place. Begleiter was all in with pocket queens preflop against the A-Q of his opponent, but Moon hit an ace on the river and the final table shrank to five.

Cada began his comeback when his pocket threes made a set to defeat the pocket jacks of Shulman, who never recovered from the bad beat and fell in fifth place. Buchman and Saout then tangled in a huge hand where the A-K of Saout held up against the A-Q of Buchman and determined that Buchman would fall in fourth place and Saout would survive longer to book a third-place finish. Cada eliminated Saout in third place to grow his stack to just under 136 million, which was pretty impressive for someone who had held as little as 2 million previously. Moon took close to 59 million into the heads-up final the next day.

Moon pulled close to even after winning the first big hand contested between the two and after a few more pots went his way, Moon held the upper hand with 122 million. He had increased his chip advantage to three times that of his opponent before Cada started another comeback. Cada took back the lead when his J-9 won a nice pot on a 10-9-5-10-3 board after Moon missed an open-ended straight draw with 8-7. Just a few hands after that Moon called all in preflop with the Q J in the hole after Cada had moved all in with pocket nines. The board was dealt 8 7 2 K 7 and Moon was eliminated in second place. Cada was the world champion at just 21 years of age, setting a new record as the youngest winner in history. He broke the previous mark set by Peter Eastgate just one year before him.

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