2008 World Series of Poker Europe Wraps Up

The poker world forgot about November 9 for a couple of weeks while the best players in the world congregated in London for the second WSOPE, which started on September 19 and ended this morning in the wee hours.

The first event was £1,500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em, and the £144,218 prize (over $300K) went to young Danish player Jesper Hougaard, who had also won a WSOP bracelet earlier this year at a $1,500 Hold’em event. This makes Hougaard the first person ever to win WSOP bracelets on both sides of the ocean.

The second WSOPE event was HORSE – the 3-day event had a £2,500 buy-in and 110 players entered, including Howard “the professor” Lederer, David Williams, Yuval Bronshtein, and the feared duo of Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivey. While all of these pros finished in the money, the big £76,999 prize went to Sherkhan Farnood, chairman of one of the largest banks in Afghanistan and the first player from that country to win a WSOP bracelet.

Event #3 was £5,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha, and in it the Universe doled out some cosmic justice: in last year’s Main Event at the WSOPE Theo Jorgensen was, at 35, the oldest player in the table, and that did not stop him from busting out in 8th place at the hands of baby-faced online poker players in their early 20s. This year Theo had his share of cold revenge, winning his first WSOP bracelet in an event with pros of the highest caliber: Chris Ferguson, Allen Cunningham, Sorel Mizzi and Padraig Parkinson.

Finally, the Main Event kicked off on September 27 – a £10,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em with 363 players and a prize pool of £3,630,000 (well over $7,000,000.) The field included the defending champion, 20-year-old poker prodigy Annette Obrestad, as well as poker greats such as Josh Arieh, Andy Bloch, Mel Judah, Erik Seidel, Mike Matusow, Scott Fischmann and Daniel Negreanu. November Niner Ivan Demidov made it all the way into the Final Table, where he finished third and took home £334,850 on top of experience and confidence for the upcoming WSOP Main Event final table.

But there can only be one winner, and it was Indonesian-born poker pro John Juanda, who now added bracelet number 4 to his collection. The Full Tilt pro took the crown from Obrestad and became the second player to ever win bracelets on both sides of the Atlantic. He also collected £868,800 (over $1,800,000.)

Juanda’s last bracelet win happened in 2003, and he was especially happy to be adding to his hardware collection again, as he declared to WSOP officials:

“It was so long ago when I won my last bracelet, I can’t remember. It’s embarrassing. Some people have to keep up with the Joneses. I have to keep up with the Iveys and Cunninghams and Negreanus. I wondered if I would ever win again.”

WSOP action will resume on November 9 when the much awaited Final Table of the Main Event gets played out.