Cliff Josephy Wins Event #9: $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout ($299,486)!
Event #9, the $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout, began with 477 players. Ten players made it to Day 3 with a chance to claim a World Series of Poker gold bracelet. It wan an impressive bunch that included four bracelet winners, but only one would emerge from the tournament with three single-table wins. That man was Cliff Josephy, now the proud owner of two WSOP bracelets (the first coming in 2005 in a $1,500 Stud tournament for $192,150).
Each final table participant began with a similar chip stack of about 71 big blinds to begin the final table. Despite jumping out to an early lead, Bulgarian Simeon Naydenov was the first to fall. After he doubled up David "Bakes" Baker on Hand #20, Naydenov fell on Hand #34 when he lost a race against Evan Silverstein. The next player to fall was Ryan Hughes when he lost a coin flip against Chris Klodnicki 34 hands later to exit in ninth place.
Josephy was in sixth place at the time and after he doubled up through Baker on Hand #74, Josephy would hold the chip lead for just about the rest of the way. He extended his lead by taking out Chris Klodnicki in eighth place and Max Steinberg in seventh place, before taking a back seat to seeing former chip leader David Baker fall to Steven Silverman in sixth place.
In a five-hand span, Josephy dispatched of Alessandro Longobardi and Tim West in fifth and fourth place, respectively to enter the dinner break with 65% of the chips.
Evan Silverstein doubled on the first hand following the dinner break through Josephy and then eliminated Steven Silverman in third place to close the gap on Josephy.
Heads-up play began with Josephy holding a slight lead over Silverstein and 46 hands later, Josephy sealed the deal and captured his second WSOP bracelet.
We hope you enjoyed our hand-for-hand coverage of this final table, and urge you to follow our coverage for the remainder of the summer as more bracelets are awarded. For now, good night from Las Vegas!
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cliff Josephy | $299,486 |
| 2 | Evan Silverstein | $185,487 |
| 3 | Steve Silverman | $123,202 |
| 4 | Tim West | $91,428 |
| 5 | Alessandro Longobardi | $68,613 |
| 6 | David "Bakes" Baker | $51,997 |
| 7 | Max Steinberg | $39,756 |
| 8 | Chris Klodnicki | $30,641 |
| 9 | Ryan Hughes | $23,791 |
| 10 | Simeon Naydenov | $18,609 |