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Event #35 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship (256 player max)

Day 1
Buy-in: $10,000
Players: 256
Prize pool: $2,406,400 going to the top 32

Event #35 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship attracted a lot of the big players, especially those who could afford the steep buyin. Paying big cash for a seat at these tables were Bruno Fitoussi, Chris Ferguson, Sammy Farha, Dan Heimiller, Andy Bloch, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, Justin Bonomo, Nick Schulman, Erik Cajelais, Jonathan Little, Frank Kassela, John Racener, Amit Makhija, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Bertrand Grospellier, Annette Obrestad, Chris Moorman, Blair Hinkle, Sandra Naujoks, 2009 Main Event Champion Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, Per Magnus Ummer, Vivek Rajkumar and Alex Melnikow.

The goal is to have two rounds of play in the Pavilion Room, which reduces the field to just 64 players that will see seats on Day 2. When it gets down to the last two players, it will be whoever takes the best two out of three matches that will become the champion. Matches will feature 20-minute levels with no ante in heads up play. All players will start with 30,000 in chips. And when the players got to it, the match ups were incredible! One featured Phil Ivey vs. Michael Mizrachi, Jose "Nacho" Barbero vs. David Williams, Brandon Adams vs. Carlos Mortensen and Scott Clements vs. 2009 November Niner Antoine Saout.

David Williams made quick work of Barbero, Amit Makhija defeated J.J. Liu, Phil Gordon vanquished Gregory Brooks and Justin Smith moved on beyond Travis Klein. Busting out of contention are Scott Seiver, Joe Cada, David Benyamine, Barney Boatman, Erik Sagstrom, Eric 'E-Fro' Froehlich, Jay Rosenkrantz, Jamin Stokes and Caros Mortensen. And that just names a few! When 1:45 AM the next day rolled around, the 64 survivors were tired and ready to pack their chips. Here are the names of the players:
  1. Timothy Adams -- 120,000
  2. Josh Arieh -- 120,000
  3. Fabrizio Balsassari -- 120,000
  4. Scott Baumstein -- 120,000
  5. Aaron Been -- 120,000
  6. Craig Bergeron -- 120,000
  7. Keith Block -- 120,000
  8. Terrence Chan -- 120,000
  9. Scott Clements -- 120,000
  10. Eric Cloutier -- 120,000
  11. James Collopy -- 120,000
  12. Jeremy Coon -- 120,000
  13. Owen Crowe -- 120,000
  14. Antonio Esfandiari -- 120,000
  15. Ryan Fee -- 120,000
  16. Andrew Feldman -- 120,000
  17. Michael Glasser -- 120,000
  18. Phil Gordon -- 120,000
  19. Ashton Griffin -- 120,000
  20. Bertrand Grospellier -- 120,000
  21. Steven Gross -- 120,000
  22. Julian Herold -- 120,000
  23. Phil Ivey -- 120,000
  24. Faraz Jaka -- 120,000
  25. Martin Kabrhel -- 120,000
  26. Gabe Kaplan -- 120,000
  27. Alexander Kostritsyn -- 120,000
  28. Anton Kozlovskiy -- 120,000
  29. Alexander Kravchenko -- 120,000
  30. Lucovic Lacay -- 120,000
  31. Michael Leah -- 120,000
  32. Jonathan Little -- 120,000
  33. Maxim Lykov -- 120,000
  34. Ayaz Mahmood -- 120,000
  35. Chris Moore -- 120,000
  36. Chris Moorman -- 120,000
  37. Jordan 'iMsoLucky0' Morgan -- 120,000
  38. Alioscia Oliva -- 120,000
  39. Brock Parker -- 120,000
  40. Emil Patel -- 120,000
  41. Kido Pham -- 120,000
  42. Vivek Rajkumar -- 120,000
  43. Juan Ramirez -- 120,000
  44. Nicholas Rampone -- 120,000
  45. Brian Rast -- 120,000
  46. Tobias Reinkemeier -- 120,000
  47. Andrew Rosskamm -- 120,000
  48. Vanessa Rousso -- 120,000
  49. Kevin Saul -- 120,000
  50. Ernst Schmejkal -- 120,000
  51. Vladimir Shchemelev -- 120,000
  52. Amritraj Singh -- 120,000
  53. Gavin Smith -- 120,000
  54. Jason Somerville -- 120,000
  55. Samuel Stein -- 120,000
  56. Johan Sundell -- 120,000
  57. Thomas Tiller -- 120,000
  58. Alexander Venovski -- 120,000
  59. Robbie Verspui -- 120,000
  60. Matthew Waxman -- 120,000
  61. Melanie Weisner -- 120,000
  62. David Williams -- 120,000
  63. Darren Woods -- 120,000
  64. Sorel Mizzi -- 120,000

Day 2

Have you ever gone to the butcher and watched him slap a piece of meat on the counter? Well, 56 players now know what that is like even if they don't eat meat. Initial matchups include Eric Cloutier vs. Vivek Rajkumar, Sorel Mizzi vs. Matthew Waxman, Jordan Morgan vs. Ludovic Lacay, Phil Ivey vs. Kido Pham and Brock Parker vs. Phil Gordon. Wow! And they moved very fast and furious. (We just learned that Kido Pham busted Phil Ivey in less than 10 minutes.) The goal of the day is to play down to 32 players, then to 16 and they will pare the field down to just 8. So that is 3 rounds scheduled for today.

Some of the players who moved on the the round of 32 are Vivek Rajkumar after defeating Eric Cloutier after his Broadway straight beat the set of 10's held by Cloutier. Alexander Kravchenko took his full house (3's/5's) and advanced while sending Jonathan Little to the showers. Sorel Mizzi got the upper end of a full house (7's/3's) which beat the lower full (3's/7's) made by Matthew Waxman, allowing Mizzi to advance. David Williams also went to the next level after finishing off the pocket Q's of Christopher Williams with paired Aces made on the flop.

Things really got tough when it was time to battle it out for the 8 spots on the 3rd round. Ayaz Mahmood won his spot by the larger two pair (A's and 7's) than the (6's and 3's) pair produced by Brian Rast. Alexander Kostritsyn was rewarded with his by beating Chris Moorman from the UK with his pocket 8's. Vanessa Rousso put the hurt on Vivek Rajkumar country style by making the wheel (A thru 5) on the flop, sealing her spot for tomorrow. By 1:00 AM, the last seat went to Kido Pham after he put it to Gavin Griffin with the two pair he made on the turn card (J's and 3's). They will return at 3:00 PM.

Payout Schedule for the Final Table

  1. $625,674
  2. $386,900
  3. $219,969
  4. $219,969
  5. $94,956
  6. $94,956
  7. $94,956
  8. $94,956
  9. $34,820
Top 9 with Chip Counts
  1. Faraz Jaka -- 960,000
  2. Alexander Kostritsyn -- 960,000
  3. Ludovic Lacay -- 960,000
  4. Ayaz Mahmood -- 960,000
  5. Vanessa Rousso -- 960,000
  6. Ernst Schmejkal -- 960,000
  7. Jason Somerville -- 960,000
  8. Kido Pham -- 960,000

Day 3

With the 8 now decided, here are the match ups for day 3:

Jason Somerville vs. Kido Pham

Faraz Jaka vs. Ayaz Mahmood

Alexander Kostritsyn vs. Ludovic Lacay

Ernst Schmejkal vs. Vanessa Rousso

To make things tougher, they will be playing 30 minute levels, each with huge jumps in the blinds. In the first round the winners were Jason Somerville vs. Kido Pham = Jason Somerville, Alexander Kostritsyn vs. Ludovic Lacay = Alexander Kostritsyn, Faraz Jaka vs. Ayaz Mahmood = Ayaz Mahmood, Ernst Schmejkal vs. Vanessa Rousso = Ernst Schmejkal. Next round has Jason Somerville vs. Ayaz Mahmood and Ernst Schmejkal vs. Alexander Kostritsyn. Winners were Ernst Schmejkal vs. Alexander Kostritsyn = Ernst Schmejkal and Jason Somerville vs. Ayaz Mahmood = Ayaz Mahmood.
  1. $625,674
  2. $219,969
  3. Jason Somerville -- $219,969
  4. Alexander Kostritsyn -- $94,956
  5. Vanessa Rousso -- $94,956
  6. Faraz Jaka -- $94,956
  7. Ludovic Lacay -- $94,956
  8. Kido Pham -- $34,820
Final Table

So now these two will battle it out on 40 minute levels. Each will have 3.84 million chips. The blinds will start at 15,000-30,000 and keep rising every 40 minutes to as high as 120,000-240,000. Both parties sat down at 10:45 PM to begin. In probably the most insane WSOP heads up ever, so far it has gone over 22 hours in length. This should be the longest in WSOP history. Once the final hand is declared, we will report it to you.

Follow Up:
Okay, in all both players were to slug it out to see who would win the best two out of three. Mahmood won the first one, but it took 6 hours and 20 minutes. Because of the potential of another long match if it were to stretch to three matches, it was decided to continue the matches on the next day. So they began play at 7 pm on Monday night and fought for more than three hours. The winning hand finally came when Mahmood had Qh 10h against Schmejkal�s Ad 6s. After the flop came Ah 10d 9c, Schmejkal was all-in with the best hand. Mahmood had a pair of 10's and managed to make a Broadway straight when the final two cards came Jd Ks. And that is how Mahmood won his first gold WSOP bracelet.

2010 Bracelet Champion #35 -- Ayaz Mahmood
2010 Bracelet Champion #35 -- Ayaz Mahmood

  1. Ayaz Mahmood -- $625,674
  2. Ernst Schmejkal -- $219,969