Home / Poker News June 2010 / WSOP 2010 Day 31 – Bell and Rockowitz pocket goods, Tourney of Champions kicks off
WSOP 2010 Day 31 – Bell and Rockowitz pocket goods, Tourney of Champions kicks off
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2010-06-29 03:55
The 31st day of the
2010 WSOP was responsible for creating two more first-time bracelet winners. Jesse Rockowitz won the $1,500 NL: Holdem event (#45) to pocket his gold, and Chris Bell triumphed in the $5,000 PLO Hi/Lo split 8 or better event.
The interesting thing about Rockowitz’s win was that it came on what is mathematically considered the worst hand in poker. Granted his 7,2 was suited, so it wasn’t exactly that bad, but it was close.
Rockowitz bested a starting field of more than 3,000 players on his way to the title and the coveted piece of WSOP jewelry. Rockowitz took on Raymond Coburn heads-up, and the final hand of the poker tournament saw his 7h,2h go up against Coburn’s Kc, 9c on a flop of 7c,8c,2d. The 6s which fell on the river, proved to be the catalyst of the all-in that would follow. Coburn was the one who made the move (having picked up an open-ended straight draw), in response to Rockowitz’s bet. The 8s on the river spelled the end of the competition as Rockowitz picked up more than $700k to go with his bracelet.
Chris Bell earned his gold in event #46. The final hand of that event was a much more radical one than Rockowitz’s winning move. Bell made a boat to best Dan Shak’s nut flush for the win.
Bell’s performance was more than impressive, considering the fact that players like Dave Ulliott, Erik Seidel and Perry Green were all at the final table of the
poker tournament.
Event #47, the $1,000 NL Holdem Special, continued with its day 1B. Together with players who had registered for day 1A, the day 1B participants rounded the initial starting field to over 3,000. When it was all said and done though, it became clear that only 476 players would make it back for day 2.
Event #48, the $2,500 Mixed event, kept on rolling as well. At the end of the day, only 21 of the initial 453 players were still standing. Vitaly Lunkin had an excellent run early on, but eventually he found the way to the rail too. Frank Kassela followed him, together with Bill Chen,
PokerStars’ Dario Minieri and Alex Kravchenko.
The big news of the day was the Tournament of Champions though, which kicked off with 4 levels of play. 5 players were disposed of on the first day of action. John Juanda opened the trickle of eliminations, and he was followed to the rail by Greg Raymer, Barry Schulman and Sam Farha. Phil Ivey was bounced eventually too.
