This year's event had a more important meaning than the previous editions of the HORSE event. After Chip Reese passed away in December of 2007, the WSOP organizers decided to honour him and give the winner of the event a Trophy named after him. So the winner of the HORSE event would win money, prestige, the bracelet, and the Chip Reese Trophy. David 'Chip' Reese was the winner of the inaugural $50,000 HORSE event and also considered by many one of the greatest cash game players of all times. The final table started with two big favorites for the title, Scotty Nguyen and Erick Lindgren who had over half the chips in play.
 Seat 1: Matt Glantz - 1,445,000
Seat 2: Huck Seed - 1,200,000
Seat 3: Patrick Bueno - 695,000
Seat 4: Lyle "Waldorf" Berman - 1,430,000
Seat 5: Scotty Nguyen - 3,535,000
Seat 6: Barry Greenstein - 1,955,000
Seat 7: Michael DeMichele - 905,000
Seat 8: Erick Lindgren - 3,680,000
It was a stellar final table, but only one player would win the $50,000 HORSE World Championship of the World Series of Poker. It was a five days event, and patience was the key word in this tournament. The final table itself took more than 15h hours to end, and as expected one of the chipleaders of day 4 won it all. Scotty Nguyen started to run good during day 3, and never looked like leaving the top after that. He eliminated 4 of the other 7 finalists. In the heads-up he defeated Michael deMichele, up and coming young player, and the final hand was played on Texas Hold'em.
Scotty Nguyen now possesses 5 bracelets and, with $1.9 million added to his pocket, he has more than 9 million dollars in tournament winnings. He has also set a new record, that will probably stay a long time unmatched: Scotty is the first player to win both the HORSE and Main Event.
1. Scotty Nguyen $1,989,120
2. Michael DeMichele $1,243,200
3. Erick Lindgren $781,440
4. Matt Glantz $568,320
5. Lyle Berman $444,000
6. Barry Greenstein $355,200
7. Huck Seed $284,160
8. Patrick Bueno $230,880 |