2010 WSOP, Day 25: Ivey, Ivey, Ivey

Another interesting day-slash-night-slash-early-morning at the Rio yesterday. The big story was Phil Ivey winning his eighth bracelet in the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event (Event No. 37). I was working Day 2 of Event No. 38, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha event with Change100, but we had a good view of the H.O.R.S.E. final table as it played out.

And what a final table! Besides Ivey there were Chad Brown, Jeffrey Lisandro, John Juanda, Bill Chen, and Kenneth Aldridge (a bracelet winner from last year). Also there was Dave Baker -- not the David Baker who won the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Lowball Championship (Event No. 19), but the other David Baker who has been tearing up the WSOP this year.

A sizable crowd gathered around that final table, including for a little while the lovely Vera Valmore. I thought about getting Wicked Chops over to get a “Girls on the Rail” pic of her, but didn’t see ’em.

By the time our event had concluded (after 3 a.m.), Ivey and Chen were heads up with Chen enjoying a better than 3-to-1 advantage. (Above is a pic of Ivey and Chen playing heads up.) I considered sticking around to watch the conclusion, but realized at that point that I’d been at the Rio for something like 29-30 of the last 36 hours. And as it wasn’t clear how long heads up was going to go, I decided I’d read about who won in the morning.

You can read about it, too, over at PokerNews’ live blog, where F-Train and TassieDevil provided excellent coverage of Event No. 37 from beginning to end. Check it out.

Today I help cover yet another event -- my third different one in three days -- Event No. 39, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout. Annette Obrestad is one of 140 players looking to make it through one more ten-handed table and to the final day tomorrow. Check out the coverage over at PokerNews.