Event #4, the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em tournament, was typically small, with just 781 players favouring the pot-limit format. Nevertheless it was not short of quality, and the final table featured Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jon Friedberg, Gavin Smith and Marco Traniello among others.

The tournament had been dominated from the start by 2004 Player of the Year Gavin Smith, who was his usual entertaining self, proclaiming he would “party if I win and party if I don’t” as the tournament drew towards a close with him still firmly in control.

But a strange pattern is emerging at the 2007 WSOP, that of well-known pro players dominating tournaments from start to (almost) finish, but ending up just shy of the gold bracelet. Greg “FBT” Mueller did it when he crushed Event #1 from the off, but ended up second to Steve Bilirakis. Then in Event #3, the $1500 NL Hold’em tournament, Alex Jacob was unstoppable right up until the business end of the final table when he took a few bad beats and ended up third to eventual winner Ciaran O’Leary.

In Event #4 Gavin Smith also brought his dominance to the final table, increasing his lead seemingly without breaking sweat as he knocked out the first three players of the day. But then the pattern kicked in once more. First Jon Friedberg doubled through Smith, and then Smith had to sit back and watch as Mike Spegal went on a run which saw him take over the chip lead.

When the heads-up play began Spegal had a 1.6 million to 770k chip lead, and he wasn’t about to let it slip. The battle was a long one, but Spegal defied his lesser experience to chip away at Smith’s stack, though not at his spirits. Even as he saw his bracelet slip away Smith was able to joke with Spegal, saying: “Why don’t you start playing like a business owner and not a poker player!” Eventually though, with 50 hands of heads-up poker behind them the two players finally got it all-in before the flop. Smith tabled pocket fives and a classic race beckoned when Spegal flipped up the A-T of spades. The flop came Jd-6s-3s and Spegal took the lead, and when the queen of spades fell on the turn it was all over.

The payouts were as follows:

1st - Mike Spegal - $252,290

2nd - Gavin Smith - $155,645

3rd - Jon Friedberg - $101,276

4th - William Hill - $67,162

5th - Thomas Savitsky - $47,973

6th - Bruce Van Horn - $36,779

7th - Eric "Rizen" Lynch - $27,718

8th - Jeff Langdon - $20, 255

9th - Marco Traniello - $14,925

Event #5, the $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo tournament gave us our second star-studded final table of the WSOP, with Annie Duke, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, John “The Razor” Pham, and David Benyamine among those at the felt.

Also present was Tom Schneider, author of the aptly named poker tome “Oops! I won too much money,” a business man turned pro poker player who regularly plays in the high stakes games at the Bellagio. Schneider started the final table with the chip lead and for once didn’t fall victim to the curse that has affected final table chip leaders at this WSOP.

He watched as first John Pham, then Joseph Bolnick, David Benyamine, Chris Bell, Chris Ferguson, and Annie Duke were eliminated to leave him heads-up with
Ed Tonnellier for the bracelet. Tonnellier had done tremendously well to reach this stage, having started the final table way at the bottom of the chip counts, but the final two proved one step too far.

He lasted an hour with Schneider, but when the chip leader flopped a full house in Omaha and was paid off up to and including the river the tie was over bar the ceremony. A few hands later Schneider dealt the killer blow during the Seven Card Stud section when he caught trip aces on sixth street and a boat on seventh street to bust Tonnellier’s two pair.

Here are the final standings:

1^st - Tom Schneider - $214,347

2^nd – Ed Tonnellier - $118,456

3^rd – Annie Duke - $75,391

4^th – Chris Ferguson - $50,391

5^th – Chris Bell - $39,109

6^th – David Benyamine - $22,939

7^th – Joseph Bolnick - $16,922

8^th – John Phan - $11,658