ESPN's 2009 WSOP Coverage Starts Tuesday

Poker News - July 27th, 2009 - Written by Bruce

ESPN is set to begin showing new episodes of the 2009 World Series of Poker on Tuesday with coverage of the $40,000 No Limit Hold'em Event. This year ESPN will show two one hour episodes every Tuesday with the $40k event kicking off the television coverage July 28th at 8pm. The $40k buy in event was a special tournament held to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the World Series of Poker. With such a large entry fee this field was considered one of the toughest ever assembled. The biggest names in the poker world made up this star studded field such as Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Erick Lindgren, and Johnny Chan just to name a few.

The huge buy in brought a mix of the top online poker players facing off against the top live poker players. Online phenoms such as Shaun Deeb, Chad "lilholdem954" Batista, Yevgeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko, Chris Moorman, and Justin "Boosted J" Smith all set out to prove they can best a field with the top poker players in the world in it. This incredibly tough field started with 201 players, and Bruno Fitoussi was the chip leader after Day 1 with former Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker right on his heels. Day 2 play began with 89 players and at the end of the day's action the 23 players remaining had all made the money payouts. The top 27 players all made the money in this tournament with all them guaranteed to take home at least $71,858. The chip leader after Day 2 was Justin Bonomo with former Main Event champion Greg Raymer not far behind.

After Day 3 play was completed the final table of nine was set. Isaac Haxton was the chip leader going into the final table but would have to get through tough opponents like Greg Raymer, Justin Bonomo, and Ted Forrest who all joined him at the final table. After the remaining players battled through a hard fought table, Isaac Haxton and Vitaly Lunkin were the last two remaining. Haxton had about a two to one chip lead when the heads up play began but it did not take long for Lunkin to erase the deficit. The two players then fought back and forth for over an hour exchanging the chip lead multiple times. Ultimately Vitaly Lunkin won holding a very fitting pocket aces to eliminate Isaac Haxton in 2nd place. For his remarkable efforts, Vitaly Lunkin took home a whopping $1,891,012 and the title of the $40k No Limit Holdem WSOP champion.