Poker news

Event #2 on the 2009 World Series of Poker schedule was reserved for a special $40,000 buy-in No Limit Hold'em tourney, commemorating 40 years of the WSOP. The one-time-only event attracted the toughest No Limit field in WSOP history and after four days of grinding, Vitaly Lunkin earned the jewelry.

Thursday saw 201 players show up at the Rio for Day 1. At $40K a pop, it didn't take much to push the total prize pool to $7.7 million, nearly $1.9 million of that going to the eventual winner. The powers that be even threw in an extra day due to the big buy-in, and after three well paced days, the final table was set.

Five-time bracelet winner Ted Forrest was the first to fall. Noah Schwartz was responsible for the Forrest bust, but he couldn't capitalize and ran his AK into Greg Raymer's aces. "Fossilman" would then take out Lex Veldhuis in 7th-place with pocket kings. Alec Torelli would finish 6th when he shoved from the cutoff and got picked off by Isaac Haxton's superior ace. Haxton would keep it rolling, dumping Justin Bonomo and his jacks with some pocket aces of his own, sending the crew to the dinner break.

After the break, Dani Stern was crippled when his fives couldn't outrun Haxton's Kc7c. Haxton would put "Ansky" out of his misery a few minutes later. At the start of three-handed play, Haxton, Raymer and Lunkin were all fairly even with 7 or 8 million plus stacks. That didn't stop Raymer from playing his fives huge preflop and getting ousted by Haxton and his nines. This allowed Haxton to take nearly a 2:1 chip lead into heads-up play with Lunkin.

The Russian and American traded the chip lead late in heads-up play. Haxton had Lunkin on the ropes, but couldn't K.O. pocket tens. Later, Lunkin would pick up the same tens, only he found a set to ice the double up. And after cracking aces earlier in the mono y mono battle, Haxton tried it again with a pair and a flush draw, only to come up short in the tourney's final hand.

Vitaly Lunkin is the winner of the one-time-only $40K Anniversary event. In addition to the $1.8 million and change, the Russian earns his second bracelet in as many years. In 2008, Lunkin topped a $1,500 NLHE field for more than $600K and the Event #27 bracelet.

Final table results:

1. Vitaly Lunkin — $1,891,012
2. Isaac Haxton — $1,168,566
3. Greg Raymer — $774,927
4. Dani Stern — $548,315
5. Justin Bonomo — $413,166
6. Alec Torelli — $329,730
7. Lex Veldhuis — $277,940
8. Noah Schwartz — $246,834
9. Ted Forrest — $230,317