Event #4, the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em tournament, was pretty small, with just 781 players electing to play the pot-limit format. Nonetheless it was far from shorn of quality and the final table featured Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Gavin Smith, Jon Friedberg and Marco Traniello among others.

Right from the start this tournament had been the Gavin Smith show; as the 2004 Player of the Year put on a dazzling display of poker, and no little good humour either, at one point proclaiming: “I’ll party if I win and party if I don’t!”

But a strange pattern is emerging at these championships; that of well-known poker pros dominating tournaments from start to (almost) finish, but ending up just short of the gold bracelet. Greg “FBT” Mueller was the first victim of this curse when he crushed Event #1 from the word go, but finished runner-up to Steve Bilirakis. Then in Event #3, the $1500 NL Hold’em tournament, Alex Jacob was unplayable from Day One and seemed a shoe in to take the title until eventual winner Ciaran O’Leary knocked him out in third.

In Event #4 Gavin Smith was also able to bring his dominance to the final table, and increased his lead without breaking sweat as he knocked out the first three players of the day. But then the pattern kicked in once more. First he doubled up Jon Friedberg, and then Smith was powerless to prevent Mike Spegal from going on a run which saw him take over the chip lead while eliminating Friedberg.

When the heads-up play began Spegal had gathered a 1.6 million to 770k chip lead, and he then showed he knew exactly how to use it. The battle was a long one, but Spegal defied his lesser experience to chip away at Smith’s stack, though not at his spirits. Even as he saw his possible first WSOP bracelet slip away Smith was still able to joke with Spegal, saying: “Why don’t you start playing like a business owner and not a poker player? Stop it!”

Eventually however, with 50 hands of heads-up poker behind them Smith succumbed when the two players finally got it all-in before the flop. Smith tabled pocket fives and when Spegal flipped up the A-T of spades a classic race beckoned. The flop came Jd-6s-3s and Spegal took the lead, and when the queen of spades fell on the turn it was all over.

The payouts were as follows:

1st - Mike Spegal - $252,290

2nd - Gavin Smith - $155,645

3rd - Jon Friedberg - $101,276

4th - William Hill - $67,162

5th - Thomas Savitsky - $47,973

6th - Bruce Van Horn - $36,779

7th - Eric "Rizen" Lynch - $27,718

8th - Jeff Langdon - $20, 255

9th - Marco Traniello - $14,925

Event #5, the $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo tournament, gave us our second star-studded final table of the 2007 World Series, when Annie Duke, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, John “The Razor” Pham, and David Benyamine lined up in the final eight.

Also present however, was Tom Schneider, author of the aptly named poker tome: “Oops! I won too much money.” Schneider is a business man turned pro poker player who regularly plays in the high stakes games at the Bellagio and he had used all his experience to reach the final table here with the chip lead. He then set about breaking the curse that had afflicted all previous final table chip leaders so far this year.

He kept his cool and his chip lead as first John Pham, then Joseph Bolnick, David Benyamine, Chris Bell, Chris Ferguson, and Annie Duke were all eliminated to leave him heads-up with Ed Tonnellier for the bracelet. Tonnellier had done terrifically well to reach this stage having started the final table with by far the least number of chips, but the bracelet proved one step too far.

He lasted an hour with Schneider but when the chip leader flopped a full house in the Omaha section and got Tonnellier to pay him off right up to the river, the tie was over bar the ceremony. A few hands later Schneider finished him off during the Seven Card Stud section when he caught trip aces on sixth street and a meaningless boat on seventh street to bust Tonnellier’s two pair.

Here are the final standings:

1^st - Tom Schneider - $214,347

2^nd – Ed Tonnellier - $118,456

3^rd – Annie Duke - $75,391

4^th – Chris Ferguson - $50,391

5^th – Chris Bell - $39,109

6^th – David Benyamine - $22,939

7^th – Joseph Bolnick - $16,922

8^th – John Phan - $11,658