2007 WSOP: Top Stories of the Week

The WSOP kicked off last Friday with a record-breaking champion in event #1. The $5000 Mixed Hold’em event was won by Steve Billirakis who was 21 years and 11 days old when he won the bracelet. That broke last year’s record for the youngest bracelet winner held by Jeff Madsen, who was a whole month older than Billirakis. It was expected that Madsen’s record would stand for a long time; this new one surely will last a few years.

A couple of days later, event # 3 broke a previous record for a non-WSOP main event with 2,891 entries. It ranks as the third-largest poker tournament of all-time, coming in behind only the WSOP main events of the last two years. The almost $4.5 million prize pool was shared by 270 players that cashed, with the first-place prize of $727,012 going to Irishman Ciaran O’Leary, aka "Big C".

One of poker’s brightest stars has to wait a bit longer for his first WSOP bracelet. Gavin Smith is considered one of the best that has not yet won a bracelet, and that label will get bigger after he lost a head-to-head battle against event #4 winner Michael Spiegel. Spiegel battled back from sixth place to win $251,957 and the bracelet against a seasoned final table.

Event #5 was one of the tournaments that was created for the pros this year, and the Pot Limit Omaha & Seven Stud Hi/Lo event turned out to be the professional battle we all expected. Big names like Annie Duke, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Josh Arieh, Scotty Nguyen, David Benyamine, and Tom Schneider were all still around with ten players left. Schneider emerged as the eventual winner of the $214,347 first prize and bracelet.

Finally, up-and-comer Erik Cajelais of Montreal is on the verge of winning his first WSOP bracelet. The young star has been tearing up the tournament scene and is rumoured to be crushing big cash games for the last two years. He is head to head with seasoned pro and WSOP bracelet winner Burt Boutin, and has roughly a 4 to 1 chip lead over Boutin.

With all of this occurring in the first week of the tournament, 2007 surely will be a special and memorable year at the Rio. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

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