H.O.R.S.E. which was Event #20 at this years World Series of Poker will be the one to watch in future WSOP tournaments as it pits the best in the game of poker against each other in a contest of skill, mental and physical endurance. 143 players almost entirely composed of the biggest stars in the game of poker entered this event. And with a $50,000 entry fee per player, a massive $6,864,000 prize pool was created. Two players were able to lay claim to over $1,000,000 by the time the contest finished. Now for those who don't know, H.O.R.S.E. stands for Holdem (both Limit and No-Limit), Omaha High-Low Split, Razz, Seven-Card Stud and Eight or Better. It is played with rotations of the six games for each level in the event. For instance the game in level 1 was Limit Hold'Em, in level 2 the game was Omaha 8/OB, level 3 game was Razz and so on. Day 1 saw a lot of incredible play and some controversy. Many players complained that the cards being dealt were marked as they were used from previous games. Andy Bloch first stood up and received a penalty after going through a deck for marked cards that he saw at his table. The complaint was followed by other players like Annie Duke, Doyle Brunson, Max Pescatori, David Grey and Scott Fischman stating that new card decks should have been brought out. Eventually new decks were provided to all tables. But the card action was of equal interest. During a level featuring the game Omaha 8/OB, Ram Vaswani and Brett Jungblut had to split a pot when both drew the nut full house Aces full of Kings with no possible low. Another hand on the same level and game saw a complicated four way split of the pot with Frank Kassela, Marcel Luske, Phil Hellmuth and Jan Sorensen. The first day ended 14 hours later with only 14 players gone. Day two had the beginning level start with the game Hold'Em at 2:00 p.m. Some of the first to go were Chip Jett, Eli Elezra, John D'Agostino, Sam Farha and Michael Mizrachi. Also Phil Hellmuth Jr. and Mike Matusow were busted, so no one had to worry about Matusow making good on his earlier bet by running the Amazon room "buck naked" if Phil became the winner. Of all the games in this event, Razz seems to be the least desirable to play by anyone. T.J. Cloutier won the Seven Card Razz bracelet in 2004 and in 2005 he had no desire to defend his title because he said it's a frustrating game. Irritated looks were on the faces of Daniel Negreanu and others whenever a level featured the game of Razz. Outside of that one selection, the other games let the pros shine at whatever they were best at. Doyle Brunson steam rolled ahead as he took out players like Paul Phillips and others while building his stack to over 1,200,000. Chip Reese who mentioned he would only compete in this and the Main Event played as if his intentions were to win both, reaching the final table with over 1,700,000 chips. Andy Bloch also made the final table in a bit of righteous justice given the treatment he received on Day 1. But with Jim Bechtel, Dewey Tomko, T.J. Cloutier, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and David Singer also sitting down to play, any money received will be well earned. And after Day 2 lasted 21 hours, these top pros did not get much rest to prepare for the championship round. Day 3 play began at 9:45 p.m. to allow some sleep for the final table participants. Players were very careful to pick and choose their battles, folding if they didn't feel they could win the hand. The first to go less than 10 min into the action was Patrik Antonius (9th). He sat down with only 13,000 only to lose his last $1,000 chip to Chip Reese. Another favorite Doyle Brunson (8th) was slowly losing his chips to others and had to leave after losing an all in hand to Jim Bechtel. Outside of that, like two samurai warriors Andy Bloch and Chip Reese cleared the table. Andy Block took out Phil Ivey (3rd), Dewey Tomko (7th), T.J. Cloutier (5th) and Jim Bechtel (4th). Chip Reese added David Singer (6th) to his list of felled combatants. At 2:10 a.m. in the morning the heads up battle began with Chip Reese and Andy Bloch. These two fought for hours as huge piles of chips went back and forth. Finally after 7 hours and 6 minutes, which was the longest heads up contest in World Series of Poker history and 354 hands played, Chip Reese was declared the winner. Here is the final hand between both players. Chip (Ac Qc) pushed all his chips to the center and Andy (9c 8s) called. Js 7c 7s comes on the flop, turn card is 4h and the river card is 4s giving a hard and long deserved victory to Chip Reese along with his fourth gold WSOP bracelet. - Chip Reese -- $1,716,000
- Andy Bloch -- $1,029,600
- Phil Ivey -- $617,760
- Jim Bechtel -- $549,120
- T.J. Cloutier -- $480,480
- David Singer -- $411,840
- Dewey Tomko -- $343,200
- Doyle Brunson -- $274,560
- Patrik Antonius -- $205,920
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