Poker Tournament Results

39th World Series of Poker 2008

Barry Greenstein

Tournament Report

Tournament Notes: • The $1,500 buy-in Razz championship attracted 453 entries. The total prize pool amounted to $618,345. The top 48 finishers collected prize money. • Razz is a variant of lowball. It is dealt out in a Seven-Card Stud format. The objective is to make the lowest five-card poker hand. Ace-to-five is the best possible hand in Razz. • Razz was first introduced onto the WSOP schedule in 1973. It has been included on the tournament schedule every year since, except 1976. • The illustrious list of former winners in this event reads like a “Who’s Who” of poker. Former Razz champions include -- Billy Baxter, Doyle Brunson, Eskimo Clark, T.J. Cloutier, Ted Forrest, Linda Johnson, Berry Johnston, O’Neil Longson, Lakewood Louie, Tom McEvoy, and Huck Seed. • Four players in history have won this event two times. This exclusive club of repeat winners includes -- Sam Angel, Bones Berland, Mike Hart, and Huck Seed. Angel, the 1973 and 1975 champion, was one the most colorful characters ever to grace the Las Vegas Strip. He passed away last year. • The tournament was played over three consecutive days. The final table took place on the secondary stage, adjacent to the ESPN main stage which featured the concluding matches of the Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em World Championship (Event #26). • The 2008 Razz champion is Barry Greenstein, a 53-year-old professional poker player from Ranchos Palos Verdes, CA. He was born in Chicago, IL. • Greenstein collected $158,659 for first place. He also earned his third WSOP gold bracelet. This was his 34th WSOP career cash. His previous victories came in 2004 for No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball, and 2005 for Pot-Limit Omaha. • Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Greenstein worked for Symantec, a high-tech company. • The second-place finisher was Chris Klodnicki, from Voorhees, NJ. • Poker activist and industry insider Mark Tenner finished in fourth place. Tenner is an Omaha High-Low cash game specialist. This was his first WSOP final table appearance. • Legendary gambler Archie Karas (real name – Anargyros Karabourniotis) finished in seventh place. Karas is best known for coming to Las Vegas almost penniless nearly twenty years ago and running gambling wins up to a reported $40 million at one point – only to lose the entire fortune back. He also beat many of poker’s best players in heads-up play out of six-figure sums in 1993 – a list which includes the likes of the late Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan, and Chip Reese. This marked Karas’ highest tournament finish ever in a WSOP tournament. “I’m here today to make my comeback again,” Karas remarked before the tournament began. “I’ll parlay the money I won in this tournament up to the $40 million that I used to have.” • Former WSOP gold bracelet winner Mike Wattel (1999 Omaha High-Low Split) finished in eighth place. Wattel is proving to be a Razz master. He has now finished in the top ten four times in this event since 2000. • Last year’s champion, Katja Thater played in this event. But she did not cash. This brings the current streak to 26 straight non-cashes for defending champions in their respective events. • With 453 entrants as opposed to 341 entrants last year, this year’s tournament participation increased 33 percent over 2007. This marks the single biggest increase of any tournament over last year, to date. • Other former WSOP gold bracelet winners who cashed in this event included Tom Schneider (12th), Andrew Brown (19th), Jeffrey Lisandro (20th), and Ted Lawson (38th). • Through the conclusion of Event #26, two players have cashed five times to date – Nikolay Evdakov (Moscow, Russia) and Tom Schneider (Scottsdale, AZ). Both are in contention to challenge the record set for “Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year,” shared by four players -- Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth, Jr. (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006), with eight in-the-money strikes. • Eight players have now cashed four times at the 2008 WSOP. This list includes – Jacobo Fernandez, Kathy Liebert, Craig Gray, Rolf Slotboom, Alex Jacob, Roland Isra, and Chris Bjorin. • The current Milwaukee’s Best Light “Player of the Year” standings shows Erick Lindgren on top of the points list with one gold bracelet win and four cashes. However, Vanessa Selbst is close in points along with Jacobo Fernandez, who currently ranks third. • Through the conclusion of Event #26 at this year’s World Series of Poker, the gold bracelet count by nations and states reads as follows: 8 – Nevada 4 – New York 4 – California 2 – Canada 2 – Missouri 1 – Germany 1 – Italy 1 – Maryland 1 – Michigan 1 -- Pennsylvania 1 – South Carolina • Through the conclusion of Event #26 at this year’s World Series of Poker, the “Professionals versus Amateurs” gold bracelet scoreboard reads: Professionals – 20 wins Amateurs -- 4 wins Semi-Pros -- 2 wins • A special note of congratulations to poker player Rocco Mediate: On this day, Rocco Mediate tied with Tiger Woods in the U.S. Open (golf) championship. An 18-hole playoff will take place tomorrow. Mediate played in the 2006 WSOP Main Event.