Main Event of the World Series of Poker 2007

The main event of the World Series of Poker 2007 was the largest poker tournament of the year with over 6,000 participants and, after the main tournament of the World Series of Poker 2006, it was the second largest poker tournament in terms of number of participants.

The 55th and final tournament of the Tournament had a buy-in of 10,000 dollars and was in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas played. It started on July 6th and ended with the final table on July 17th. Psychologist Jerry Yang participated for the first time and won the most prestigious poker tournament in the world.

Participant expectations

The tournament management calculated in the run-up to the event with 9,000 participants for the main tournament. According to Phil Gordon , Harrah’s expected up to 10,000 players, which would have run out of capacity. In the end, however, the official number of participants was “only” 6358. That meant almost 2,500 fewer players compared to the previous year. In addition, the number of participants decreased for the first time since 1992 . The reason the number of participants ultimately fell by more than 25% is because of the ban on money transfers on online poker sites in the States . Due to the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" , the online poker sites were not allowed to offer a place in the main event , but only to transfer money to the online players. This gave the winners of these satellites the choice of keeping the money, participating in one of the smaller tournaments or playing the main event . Still, the 2007 Main Event was the second largest poker tournament to date in terms of number of participants, with the winner winning $ 8.25 million in prize money.

Tournament schedule

The starting field of 6358 players was spread over the first four game days (day 1A-1D) at the beginning of the tournament. The players of July 6th and 7th (day 1A & 1B) played on July 10th (day 2A) and the players of July 8th and 9th (days 1C & 1D) played on July 11th (day 2B). On July 12th, the official third day of the tournament, the field was reunited (day 2A & 2B). A total of 621 players made it into the prizes, which makes up 9.77% of the starting field.

date	Gameday	Number of players	Chip leader
0July 6th	1A	1287	none
07th of July	1B	1545	none
08th of July	1C	1743	none
0July 9	1D	1783	none
10th of July	2A (1A & 1B)	1037	Dag Martin Mikkelsen
July 11th	2B (1C & 1D)	1303	Dag Martin Mikkelsen
July 12	3 (2A & 2B)	797	Alexander Kravchenko
July 13th	4th	337	Dario Minieri
July 14th	5	112	Gus Hansen
15th of July	6th	36	Hevad Khan
16th of July	backlash free
17th July	Final table	9	Philip Hilm

The column "Chip Leader" refers to the status at the beginning of the respective tournament day.

Tournament course

Bracelet that Yang received in addition to the prize money for the victory

Prominent participants

As every year, some well-known personalities, away from the poker table, took part in the main event in 2007 . These included Jason Alexander , Hank Azaria , Steve Davis , Shannon Elizabeth , Brad Garrett , Tobey Maguire , AJ McLean , Nelly , Todd Phillips , Ray Romano , Teddy Sheringham , Antonio Tarver and Rick Tocchet . Tobey Maguire performed best, the American actor finished 292nd and won $ 39,445. The television producer Sam Simon received the same amount for 329th place.

World Champion

On the first day of the main event, last year's winner Jamie Gold and former No Limit Texas Hold'em world champions Jim Bechtel , Doyle Brunson , Johnny Chan , Phil Hellmuth , Amarillo Slim and Greg Raymer were eliminated. Brad Daugherty , Joe Hachem , Dan Harrington , Tom McEvoy and Chris Moneymaker joined on the second day . On day three, Chris Ferguson was eliminated before the prize ranks. On the other hand, Berry Johnston , Robert Varkonyi and Carlos Mortensen came into the prize money regions . On the fifth and third from last day, 1996 World Champion , Huck Seed , was eliminated. Scotty Nguyen was able to reach eleventh place.

Women

Best woman was Maria Ho , who took 38th place.

German-speaking participants

Some German-speaking players also took part in the main tournament. The following table lists all players who advanced into prize money regions.

space	origin	player	Prize money (in $ )
080		Niklas Heinecker	106,382
110		Andreas Krause	058,570
215		Alexander Dietrich	051,398
231		Sebastian Zink	045,422
244		Moritz Hopfner
296		Christoph Stiehler	039,445
390		André Wagner	034,664
423		Christiane Klecz	029,883
550		Marc Friedmann	020,320

Final table

Jerry Yang (2008)

The final table began on July 17, 2007. Russian Alexander Kravchenko won a bracelet that year . The South African Raymond Rahme was the first African ever to reach the final table of the WSOP Main Event. The most successful and well-known player at the table was Lee Watkinson . The Dane Philip Hilm , who came to the final table as the chip leader, was the first of the nine players to leave the table. After about five hours, the table was reduced to four players, compared to ten hours in the previous year. Born in Lao, Jerry Yang received the second highest prize money of the main event to date after 205 hands at the final table. In the final hand he won with 8 ♣ 8 ♦ against Lam with A ♦ Q ♦ .

space	origin	player	Prize money (in $ )
1		Jerry Yang	8,250,000
2		Tuan Lam	4,840,981
3		Raymond Rahme	3,048,025
4th		Alexander Kravchenko	1,852,721
5		Jon Kalmar	1,255,069
6th		Hevad Khan	0.956.243
7th		Lee Childs	0.705.229
8th		Lee Watkinson	0.585,699
9		Phillip Hilm	0.525.934

Web links

• Main Event of the World Series of Poker 2007 in the Hendon Mob Poker Database
• 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event on the World Series of Poker website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Phil Gordon ( memento from June 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) in The Poker Edge Podcast (mp3, 5:24) on November 16, 2006, accessed on August 16, 2019 (English).
2. ↑ WSOP Championship Event: The nine finalists on pokerolymp.de on July 17, 2007, accessed on August 16, 2019.