News
PHIL HELLMUTH GUNS FOR 12TH WSOP GOLD BRACELET TODAY
Jun 11 2011 01:34 PM EST
6:00 PM Update: Phil Hellmuth leads the event with 7 players remaining.
Today is definitely one for the history books at the World Series of Poker.
Today is definitely one for the history books at the World Series of Poker.
With 9 players remaining in the $10,000 buy-in 2-7 Draw Lowball (No-Limit) Championship, 8 of the players are former WSOP gold bracelet winners and two are previous champions of this event.
But what looms largest is Phil "The Poker Brat" Hellmuth who attempts to add a little separation between him and Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson as he looks to capture his 12th WSOP gold bracelet - more than anyone else in history.
WSOP.com will live stream this final table once play reaches 7-handed, which is the official final table. That is expected to occur around 5:00 PM Las Vegas time today. Click HERE to follow the live video stream.
For those of you in Las Vegas, we encourage you to come down to the Rio in Las Vegas, where this event will take place live on the ESPN Main Set in the famed Amazon Room in the Rio Convention Center. Plenty of seating exists. Play is expected to run from 3 pm until at least midnight.
The nine players return for play at 3:00 pm today and you can follow live updates and chip counts right HERE.
And what a nine they are. Eight of them are gold bracelet winners. Two have previously won the WSOP Main Event (Helllmuth and Greg Raymer). One is a WSOP Europe Main Event champion and has 4 total WSOP gold bracelets (John Juanda), one outlasted 6,011 others in the largest non-WSOP Main Event tournament in history (Steve Sung) and oh yeah, two have previously won this event (David Bakes Baker and Nick Schulman). In fact, Baker is the defending champion of this event and Schulman won it the year before.
Hellmuth must also unseat today's chip leader Richard Ashby, who is one of the hottest players in poker and who won a WSOP gold bracelet last year, plus bracelet winner Hasan Habib.
And if that wasn't enough, Hellmuth must also deal with Joe Cassidy, one of poker's premiere cash game players who sits third in chips.
Winning is never easy, and for Hellmuth it has been 4 years and two days since his last victory, but who is counting?
There's no doubt that whomever wins this event will be well-deserving and though Hellmuth sits 7th in chips entering today's play, there are several records he's looking to extend and poker fans everywhere will be watching closely to see how he fares today.
The 2011 WSOP continues through July 19.
