While the middle weeks at the World Series of Poker lack the hoopla of the opening events and the main event’s dramatic tension, there’s still plenty of action and excitement at the Rio.
With half the events in the books at press time, some familiar names are back in the spotlight. Men Nguyen took home $394,807 by capturing the 7-card stud championship, while Sammy Farha, who came to prominence by finishing second to Chris Moneymaker in the WSOP that ushered in the modern poker boom and then went on to become a fixture on the High Stakes Poker TV show, and earned himself $488,241.
John “Tex” Barch, who finished third in the 2005 World Series of Poker main event, bagged his first gold bracelet along with $256,919 in the $1,500 potlimit Omaha event.
But the star of this year’s WSOP is former Russian chess prodigy Vladimir Schmelev. As we go to press he has already cashed in three events for a total pay-out of $1,082,823. The St. Petersburg resident narrowly lost the $50,000 buy-in Player’s Championship to Michael Mizrachi when his Qd-8s was far ahead of Mizrachi’s Qs-5c, only to lose when the 5h paired Mizrachi to bring him the victory. Nevertheless, the consolation prize of $963,375 made for a nice payday.
Schmelev continued his impressive run to finish seventh in Event No. 10, the $10,000 7-card stud championship for $55,991, and seventh in Event No.15, the $10,000 7-stud/8 championship for $63,457.
While the drama plays out at the WSOP, we continue to bring you the 2010 World Series of Poker results.
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