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I will tell the story behind the answer once Barny has done the reveal, assuming he does not tell you. It's his Thread, don't want to tread on his toes, but he's unearthed a right story there.
Both Max & Maria Stern won in 1997, in fact Max won 2 that year.
Stu Rutter is still galloping on, having now locked up $6319
As I write this, Ted Forrest has fallen too, so down to 17, one more elimination away from the final 2 tables.
Another superb run from Stuart Rutter was halted just shy of the final table as he was eliminated in 11th position for a cash of $12,058. That's 3 times in the last 13 inside a week for the man from the Midlands.
Three players will come back for an unscheduled fourth day, with Robert Campbell the chip lead, with Arash Ghaneian not far behind and David Levi the short stack.
WSOP25 - $5000 NLH 8 Max, 493 entrants, Day 1 of 4
A FT table full of very talented players with French pro Pierre Milan (who won a bracelet last year) leading the way ahead of the likes of Jonathan Jaffe, Dan O'Brien and with the short stack Dominik Nitsche.
Big name after big name fell during the day, Shaun Deeb went out early, last GB player Sergi Rexach folled not long after, followed by November Niners Jesse Sylvia & Joseph Cheong.
WSOP26 - $1000 PLO, 1293 entrants, Day 2 of 3
The WSOP are saying that this was the largest live non-Hold'em tournament in history, with 1293 entrants.
1 in 10 of that figure came back for Day 2 but only 16 stuck around all day to make Day 3.
Aaron Wallace is the chip leader ahead of German Marko Neumann & Hungary's Balazs Somodi. A whole mix of nationalities still involved, but not the UK I'm afraid; our last hope Seb Saffari busted 34th for $5690
WSOP27 - $10K Seven Card Stud Championship, 91 entrants, Day 1 of 3
Seven men and one woman are the challengers for the 7-card stud Championship event, with Brian Hastings entering the Day 3 battle with a decent chip lead (the nearest challenger to his 770K is John Thrower's 426K).
The one lady left is Oxana Cummings, perhaps she should swap homes with Thrower as he is from Cum ming, Georgia.
With lines like that, perhaps I'd better be going instead.
WSOP28 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 4 Day Event, Day 1A
3027 players tried their luck in Day 1A of the Monster Stack, and after the chips had been bagged and the dust settled, Chi Troung from Australia is top dingo.
You've got to look all the way down to 61st before "GB" appears in the chip listings, that's where Chun Law sits with Ben Rolle (one of a large number of Brighton players here) in 81st.
Several other GB names have progressed, some well known including Simon Deadman & Rhys Jones, others not so like Martyn Frey, James Clossick & Tina Bandyle.
Day 1B is today.
To start today
WSOP29 - $10K No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship (3 Day Event)
Event 21 - 13th for $24852
Event 24 - 11th for $12058
Tremendous performances by Stu Rutter, deffo British Player of the Series so far.
So, the husband & wife Bracelet question, the answer to which was Max & Maria Stern.
I claim no credit for the answer - Kev Mathers ("Kevmath" the 2+2 Moderator, who is a friend of mine) found the answer, then showed me, with great patience, the amazing backstory.
More.....
Remarkably, Maria won her bracelet in the same year & series in which her husband won TWO Bracelets. Which, you'd agree, is quite remarkable, on the face of it.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stern_(poker_player)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Stern
So that was pretty impressive stuff, & answered the question.
But wait........
...and then the rumours started to circulate.
It was alleged that Max desperately wanted his wife to win a WSOP Bracelet. So, when he saw she had made a deep run in a 7 Card Stud Event, it is suggested that he......err......well, allegedly bribed the other players to dump chips to his wife, so she would win.
Is that true?
Well I don't know, any more than you do.
Contemporary reports certainly add some currency to the rumours......
check out Tom Sims' hand-by-hand record and see what you think.
/>
/> It shows that Stern won 17 of the first 18 hands played, heads up. And
/> when
/> the series of, umm, wins began, she was at a three-to-one chip
/> disadvantage.
They played 48 hands heads-up. Guess how many
/> show-downs?
/> One, the final hand.
The above 2 quotes came from......
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.gambling.poker/sUcDTzJLLuA/eBq1EKmOh2AJ
And here is the official "Live Update" (such as it was) by "conjelco", who were the Pokernews or blondepoker of their time.....
http://conjelco.com/wsop97/event4.html
In particular.....
"......In the first four events, three ladies have made it to the final table, and two of them have won a WSOP championship. Today the crowd favorite, Maria Stern, began heads up play for the title with $185,000 in chips, while Adam Roberts had $200,000. In a very "interesting" confrontation that lasted about 45 minutes, Maria won 38 out of the 48 hands played, with only the first and last hands going to a showdown. It seemed that Roberts was experiencing an almost unbelievable run of poor cards, that saw him folding with regularity. On five occasions Roberts folded an Ace doorcard to Stern's bring in bet. This resulted in a steady exodus of his chips to the other side of the table....."
Completely unrelated, but this note from the 1997 WSOP was quite interesting, I thought.
"Smokers Note: There were two smokers at today's final table in the 7 card stud event. One was Maria Stern who captured the title, and ironically her seat was next to Joe Macchiaverna who always carries and often wears a gas mask while playing poker."
Tikay, youre a natural, I bet you do after dinner speeches.
I was approached by a company who organise "After Dinner Speakers" only 3 days ago, they offered me £xxx per evening, & up to 3 evenings per week. I'll be honest, it really made me think, & turned my head a bit.
I doubt I could do it at present, whilst I have my little job here, but if anything happened & I went down the road, so to speak, I think I'd deffo give it a whirl, I can think of worse ways to earn a few bob.
You may remember Johnny Gould, who I worked with at Poker 425 (Wm Hill TV) many years ago, then, latterly, here at Sky Poker. He makes a great living giving After Dinner Speeches.
I have a story or two to tell, too, but many of them will have to remain untold for the time being. It would probably be inappropriate to relate some of them at the moment, too.
It's not "kiss & tell" stuff, no no, just interesting tales.
Just glanced at the monster stack, day b and look who is sitting 3rd with a very nice stack, the 1 and only - CHRIS MOORMAN
And nobody is surprised I hope!
Also James Dempsey is going along nicely in top 30
Me retire? I love working, & I love life.
After the extra day, Arash Ghaneian won the bracelet and the first prize of $239,750 ahead of Aussie Rob Campbell & Isreali now resident in Vegas, David Levi
Phil Hellmuth clocked up his 104th cash, extending his record in that category, but who has the most cashes without a bracelet? Tony Cousineau, who picked up his 71st cash in this very event, and the second in the list also cashed here, Tom McCormick who's now got half a hundred cashes without a bracelet.
WSOP25 - $5000 NLH 8 Max, 493 entrants, Day 1 of 4
A final table stacked full of successful pros, and the winner turns out to be a High School football coach from Florida, Jeffrey Tomlinson.
On his first ever WSOP FT, he finished off beating Dominik Nitsche (3 bracelets) into 3rd and Pierre Milan (1 bracelet) in the heads-up match.
WSOP26 - $1000 PLO, 1293 entrants, Day 3 of 3
Another fairy tale story as Aaron Wallace, on a business trip, satellited into Event 26 and dominated from the middle of Day 2 to collect $227K (more or less) and the fabled gold bracelet.
Wallace beat Marko Neumann heads up. The German is a PLO specialist, finishing on the final table of the $10K PLO event last year. Noah Merritt was 3rd, and 4th was that rare thing, a player from Luxembourg - Jeroen Choinier.
The only British casher, Seb Saffari, had long since been knocked out in 34th.
WSOP27 - $10K Seven Card Stud Championship, 91 entrants, Day 3 of 3
This one is done and dusted too, and contrary to the above games, an established name pro was the victor here. Like Event 26, however, it was the Day 2 chip leader who held on and finished the job.
That was Brian Hastings, taking his second bracelet. He beat Scott Clements heads up in what is Clements' 4th time finishing 2nd in a bracelet event. Don't feel too sorry for him though, as he has also racked up 2 first places of his own.
Last lady standing, Oxama Cummings, went out in 5th while Max Pescatori, already a winner this series, bust in 8th.
WSOP28 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 4 Day Event, 7192 entrants, Day 1 of 4
If 7192 entrants can be described as a disappointing field size, I guess it says more about where we were last year than this. Any way it's down almost 10%.
They haven't put up a Day 1B chip listing by itself, but they do have combined 1A/1B listings and we can see that all 3 of the players with over 200K chips are from 1B - Nick Maimone, Rick Basham & Gary Bolden.
Flicking through the list there are a pleasantly large number of GB players still in, too many to list in fact but I'll just note the names of names of Michael Kane (237th) & James Rann (1076th) from the total of 2060 qualifiers.
WSOP29 - $10K No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship, 77 entrants, Day 1 of 3
Is 77 the smallest normal (i.e. excluding One Drop) bracelet field for years? I can't remember one that low.
Anyway, 14 will cash so close to 20% of the field and leading the way overnight is Nick Schulman, with two men who've already had multiple deep runs, Shaun Deeb & Mike Gorodinsky inside the Top 10.
Adam Owen is the only GB player of the 32 left; Stu Rutter was riding along nicely at one point but then got crippled and eliminated in quick succession. Jorryt van Hoof is still in but he's gone back to be being Dutch.
To start today
WSOP30 - $1000 NLH (3 Day Event)
WSOP31 - $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better (3 Day Event)
"Inclined" pylons means this......