Firstly for today we check in at event 24, the $5,000 Omaha hi/lo tournament which saw Scotty Nguyen going into heads-up play at a pretty big chip disadvantage to Joe Cassidy.

It took just over 2 hours for Cassidy to final put one over on Scotty and claim the bracelet and the $294,777 for first. He’ll be happy to have hung on, as the bets were getting huge in comparison to the stacks and it really could have gone either way if Scotty had a little luck.

To event 25, the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout which saw Victor Ramdin flying the flag for the sponsored pros at the final table. Ramdin finished a disappointing 4th in the end. The heads-up battle was between Brian Meinders and Darin Thomas. Meinders had a 2nd place finish in 2010 and went one better today taking home $116,118 and his first WSOP bracelet after a fairly short heads-up battle.

Another bracelet was handed out in the $3,000 PLO event which started the day with 18 players. After a massive pot four handed against the then chip leader Vadzim Kursevich, Austin Scott who finished 8th in this event last year didn’t look back and steamrolled his way to his first bracelet. He went into heads-up play against Brett Richey with a 4:1 chip lead and got the job done pretty quickly and taking away $361, 797 for his efforts.

At the $1,500 HORSE event we played down from 889 to 165 yesterday and those 165 became just 18 at the end of play today. All remaining players are now guaranteed $7,116. The chip leader is Ylon Schwartz a name you might remember as a former November Niner. He sits with 416,000 chips. The only other notable names remaining are David Chiu and Allen Cunningham, but they’re a long way back sitting with about 150,000 each. $267,081 awaits whoever emerges victorious at the end of play tomorrow.

The fast and furious $2,500 4-Handed NLHE got underway earlier today and drew a field of 750 players. At the end of play 88 remain, with 86 paid so our prediction of the bubble bursting on day 1 fell just short. Aggression pays in these shorthanded tournaments and among those remaining are well known aggressive players like Brian Rast who sits second in chips, as well as Lex Veldhuis, Jake Cody, Jeff Madsen, Isaac Haxton, Annette Obrestad and Jon ‘Pearljammer’ Turner. Steven Weiss sits at the top of the heap on 171,000 chips. Play resumes tomorrow 1 pm.

Tomorrow sees two new events kicking off; the $1,000 Seniors’ NLHE event starts at 12 pm and then later in the day it’s one for the gamblers, the $1,500 2-7 Draw Lowball.

Author Profile: Rob O’Connor+

written by Rob \\ tags: Day 18, Omaha Hi/Lo, Poker, Scotty Nguyen, World Series of Poker, WSOP