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Event #26 Limit Hold'em

Day 1
Buy-in: $1,500
Players: 643
Prize pool: $877,695 split amongst the top 63

Action takes place at noon with all players starting with 4500 chips each. Some of the names at the tables include Bill Chen, Daniel Negreanu, Jan Von Halle, Paul Darden, Bryan Devonshire, Barry Greenstein, Jerry Dunning, Al Barbieri, John "Miami" Cernuto, Teddy "Iceman" Monroe, Soheil Shamseddin, Barbera Enright, Barry Shulman, Victor Ramdin and Shannon Elizabeth. Play for the first two hours was slow, so slow to where no player busted out! But you know that can't last forever.

By 4:00 PM Brock Parker was gone as was David Chiu. Jerry Buss took a walk to the sidelines after being on the losing end of a 3 way hand. Also on the rail were Maya Gellar and Daniel Negreanu. The field in the Amazon room continued to slowly dry up, until tournament officials at 1:00 AM said to the remaining 124 left to bag their chips.
  1. Jan Von Halle -- 68,300
  2. Dominik Kulicki -- 61,100
  3. Bill Chen -- 60,600
  4. Matt Keikoan -- 48,300
  5. Josh Levine -- 47,800
  6. Rep Porter -- 44,900
  7. Justin Bonomo -- 44,800
  8. Corey Bromberg -- 43,700
  9. Noah Boeken -- 42,400

Day 2

Here is the payout schedule for the final table:

  1. $197,509
  2. $121,999
  3. $80,072
  4. $55,575
  5. $40,681
  6. $31,324
  7. $25,312
  8. $21,415
  9. $18,931
Today was a good day as the top 63 surviving in the field will see money for their pockets. But in order to reach that magic number, some will have to be eliminated. Play started at 2:00 PM and in the first 30 minutes, Shannon Elizabeth busted after her paired Aces were overcome by another player who made a set of Kings. Zelong Dong, (no emails please), was sent to the rail by Matt Keikoan who is now up to 84,000 chips.

The 'Tired Player of the Day' award goes to Barry Greenstein as he was seen running back and forth between this event and the $10,000 World Championship Heads Up No Limit Hold'Em event. For those who stayed at their tables, they saw Noah Boeken eliminate the bubble girl and watched players go all-in, heading for the cashier's cage like lemmings. Gone are Soheil Shamseddin in 63rd, Barry Greenstein in 53rd, Bryon Devonshire in 52nd, Victor Ramdin in 49th, Steve Cowley in 38th, Nikki Harris in 37th, Jan Von Halle in 41st and Paul Darden in 31st. At 2:30 AM the next day, tournament officials said to bag the chips and come back tomorrow.

Fifteen were left to move on to Day 3. Here are the top 9 players with chip counts:
  1. Al Barbieri -- 400,000
  2. Demetrios Arvanetes -- 350,000
  3. Tomas Alenius -- 322,000
  4. Kim Phong Duong -- 272,000
  5. Ken Dickenson -- 230,000
  6. Rep Porter -- 196,000
  7. Glenn Engelbert -- 173,000
  8. Andrew Kerstine -- 161,000
  9. Richard Brodie -- 152,000

Day 3 -- Final Table

Here is the final table summary as seen from the WSOP:

The 2009 World Series of Poker $1,500 buy-in Limit Hold�em champion is Tomas Alenius. Alenius is a 33-year-old professional poker player. He worked as a blackjack dealer before pursing a poker career. When home in Sweden, Alenius plays mostly online poker. Alenius becomes only the second Swedish WSOP gold bracelet winner in history. However, he is arguably the first to win poker�s most coveted prize. Two-time gold bracelet winner Chris Bjorin is Swedish. However, Bjorin lives in London, England. Alenius collected $197,509 for first place. He was also awarded his first WSOP gold bracelet. The defending champion from 2008 was Jimmy Shultz. He entered this year�s event but did not cash.

The final table lasted about five hours. Al Barbieri held the chip lead most of the way. But he played aggressively throughout the finale, and bled away chips late when he was up against better hands. Once Barbieri lost the chip lead, he was never able to recover. When heads-up play began, Jason Tam enjoyed a 3 to 1 chip advantage over Alenius. But the Swede defeated the Canadian in the duel, which lasted about an hour. The final hand of the tournament came when Alenius won the last pot with ace-high. But the biggest pot of the night came earlier when Alenius bested Tam with a full-house busting a flush. Alenius made eights-full-of-sevens. Tam lost with the nut flush. That hand essentially decided the outcome of the tournament.


Tomas Alenius

  1. Tomas Alenius -- $197,509
  2. Jason Tam -- $121,999
  3. Al Barbieri -- $80,072
  4. Glenn Engelbert -- $55,575
  5. Demetrios Arvanetes -- $40,681
  6. Dominik Kulicki -- $31,324
  7. Rep Porter -- $25,312
  8. Kim-Phong Duong -- $21,415
  9. Cole Miller -- $18,931