Event 2 of WSOP sees Hinkle win first bracelet

Event #2 of this year’s World Series of Poker saw Grant Hinkle win his 1st WSOP bracelet. After beating out a field of almost 4000 other players, Hinkle claimed the bracelet and the $831,462 prize money. This event was also the longest to date in preliminary events of any WSOP game.

Play on Day 2 was supposed to go until only 9 players were left standing, but after 16 hours of play, the field has only been narrowed to 18 players and play was suspended. Day 3 started with 2 tables each with 9 players but quickly dwindled as players busted out. The first elimination of Day 3 saw Hinkle versus Brandon Blake, where Brandon had flopped a set of fives to Hinkle’s set of sixes. After 6 more players went out, the play slowed down a bit, as no one wanted to be out of the bubble of the final table. Jeff Wiedenhoeft eventually took that spot and earned a cool $52,021 for finishing 10th.

Final table play began and Joe Rutledge went all in with pocket sixes against Chris Ferguson, who held A-9. An ace hit on the board and with no improvement to Rutledge’s hand, he was out in 9th place with $83,127 in prize money. Then came David Bach all in against Theo Tran, with Bach holding a gut shot straight to Trans mid pair. Bach’s hand didn’t improve and he left in 8th place with $117,987.

Next to go was Melvin Jones, who pushed all in with Q-T, only to see Tran’s pocket aces. After a flop that included a queen but no other help for Jones, he finished in 7th place, earning $158,211. Aaron Coulthard was next to go after his K-J couldn’t stand up to James Akenhead’s A-K. Coulthard earned $211,841 for his 6th place finish. Shortly after that elimination came the end of Mike Ngo’s game when Ngo’s A-K didn’t hold up against Hinkle’s A-J as a jack came on the river. Ngo earned $268,154 for hi 5th place finish.

Theo Tran was the next to go, in 4th place when his set of aces couldn’t beat Hinkle’s full house. Tran’s prize for his 4th place finish was $327,148. Chris Ferguson may just win the prize for the most all ins at a final table, more than a dozen times he put up all his money on his hand. But, Fergusons luck fun out when he went all in with K-10 against Akenhead’s A-10, leaving Ferguson out in 3rd place and claiming $389,287 for that finish.

As heads-up play began Hinkle had a chip lead of almost 2-1, and 2 more hours of play until Hinkle had all the chips. Hinkle chipped away at Akenhead’s stack and about an hour into the race for the bracelet, Akenhead won a monster pot and put himself within 1.3 million chips of Hinkle’s stack. After battling back and forth with Hinkle maintaining the chip lead, sometimes with a huge margin and sometimes a very slim one, play ended with Hinkle moving all in holding 10-4 to Akenhead’s A-K. Once the flop of 10-4-10, Hinkle’s hand looked golden. With the turn dealing a 10 also, Akenhead was drawing dead to Hinkle’s quad 10s and thus finished in second place to win $520,219. Hinkle picked up his first WSOP bracelet and more than $831,000.

News Added: 09 June, 2008

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