The 2007 World Series of Poker was the 38th annual World Series of Poker (WSOP). Held in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino, the series featured 55 poker championships in several variants. As a WSOP custom since 1976, each of the event winners receive a championship bracelet in addition to that event's prize money. The series culminates with the $10,000 No-Limit hold'em "Main Event", which has attracted thousands of entrants since 2004. The winner of the WSOP Main Event, who wins a multimillion-dollar prize, is considered to be the World Champion of Poker.

Most of the tournaments played at the WSOP are variants of Texas hold'em, a game where each player may use a combination of the five community cards and two hole cards to make the best hand. Another poker variant with community cards is Omaha, in which each player is dealt four hole cards and must use two of them in conjunction with three of the five community cards to make the best possible five-card hand. In contrast to games with community cards, some variants, such as stud or draw, deal each player separate hands with no common cards. Seven-card stud deals each player two hole cards, followed by four face-up cards one at a time, and then another hidden card, with betting after each round. Other games played at the 2007 tournament included Razz, H.O.R.S.E., and Deuce-to-Seven. Prior to 2000, seven-card stud was the most common game in U.S. casinos, but today hold'em has almost totally eclipsed the once popular game.

Within each of these poker variants, a myriad of options exist. For example, depending on the betting structure, a tournament might be described as no-limit, limit, or pot-limit. Games may include other variations on the rules governing the execution of the specific game such as shootout, eight or better, or heads up.

With 54,288 total entries and a combined prize pool of $159,796,918, the 2007 WSOP was the largest series of poker tournaments ever. For many, winning a share of the prize pool was all that mattered, while others sought the glory associated with winning a bracelet. This dichotomy could not have been illustrated better than a deal negotiated at the Senior Championship event. Tony Korfman wanted the money while Ernest Bennett wanted the glory. Rather than leave their fates to chance, the two of them ensured they got what they wanted. In exchange for splitting the prize money, Korfman agreed to let Bennett win the bracelet. After winning $8.25 million in the Main Event, Jerry Yang and his wife retired. "My winning today also means a lot to me, because I know that I can use this money to do a lot of good for other people out there," Yang said before donating over a million dollars to charity. Upon winning his record eleventh bracelet, Phil Hellmuth said, "the bracelets have always been a really huge deal, to me more than the other guys, because I knew that they represented history."ESPN's Coverage of the 2007 World Series of Poker, Episode 2

Age and disability was another story line of the 2007 WSOP. At 21 years and 10 days old, Steve Billirakis became the youngest person to ever win a WSOP bracelet. At the other end of the spectrum, 94-year-old Jack Ury was the oldest person to ever participate in the Main Event. Hal Lubarsky, a blind man, finished in 197th place at the Main Event.

Key *Elected to the Poker Hall of Fame (#/#)This denotes a bracelet winner. The first number is the number of bracelets won in 2007. The second number is the total number of bracelets won. Both numbers represent totals as of that point during the tournament. Place The place in which the player finished. Name The player who made it to the final table Prize ($) The amount of money, in U.S. Dollars ($), awarded for each finish at the event's final table

Results

Event 1: $5,000 World Championship Mixed hold'em Limit/No-Limit

This event kicked off the 2007 WSOP. It was a $ buy-in Mixed (alternating between limit and no-limit) Texas Hold'em tournament.

3-day event: Friday, June 1, 2007, to Sunday, June 3, 2007 Number of entries: 451 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 45 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Steve Billirakis (1/1) $2nd Greg Mueller $3rd Tony George $4th Steve Paul-Ambrose $5th Fred Berger $6th Roger McDow $7th Kirk Morrison (0/1) $8th Jon Turner $9th John Younger $

Event 2: $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em This was a $ buy-in no-limit Texas Hold'em tournament reserved for casino employees that work in Nevada.

2-day event: Friday, June 1, 2007, to Saturday, June 2, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 1,039 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 100 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final tablePlace Name Prize1st Frederick Narciso (1/1) $2nd Charles Fisher $3rd Gene Lang $4th Chris Chau $5th Kevin Kalthoff $6th David Dietrich $7th Meaghan Larivee $8th John Konich $9th Eric Schutzberg $

Event 3: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em

3-day event: Saturday, June 2, 2007, to Monday, June 4, 2007 Number of entries: 2,998 Total Prizepool: $ Number of payouts: 270 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Winner Prize1st Ciarán O'Leary (1/1) $ 2nd Paul Evans $ 3rd Alex Jacob $ 4th Jeffrey Yoak $ 5th Craig Crivello $ 6th Andreas Krause $ 7th Thad Smith $ 8th Bart Hanson $ 9th Matthew Vengrin $

Event 3 was the largest non-Main Event live tournament in history. This record, however, would be short lived as event 49 would break that record.

Event 4: $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em

3-day event: Sunday, June 3, 2007, to Tuesday, June 5, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 781 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 72 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final tablePlace Name Prize1st Mike Spegal (1/1) $2nd Gavin Smith $3rd Jon Friedberg $4th William Hill $5th Tom Savitsky $6th Bruce Van Horn $7th Eric Lynch $8th Jeff Langdon $9th Marco Traniello $

Event 5: $2,500 Omaha/Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better

3-day event: Sunday, June 3, 2007, to Tuesday, June 5, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 327 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 32 Winning hand: See note Reference:

+ Final tablePlace Name Prize1st Tom Schneider (1/1) $2nd Ed Tonnellier $3rd Annie Duke (0/1) $4th Chris Ferguson (0/5) $5th Chris Bell $6th David Benyamine $7th Joe Bolnick $8th John Phan $

Note: While seven cards were dealt, only five cards are used to determine the Winning hand. The five cards used to determine the Winning hand were the three aces and two fours, one of the cards not used was not recorded.

Event 6: $1,500 Limit Hold'em

3-day event: Monday, June 4, 2007, to Wednesday, June 6, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 910 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 90 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final tablePlace Name Prize1st Gary Styczynski (1/1) $2nd Varouzhan Gumroyan $3rd Hansu Chu $4th Soheil Shamseddin $5th James Gorham $6th James Holland $7th Michael Banks $ 8th Peter O'Donnell $9th Anthony Imani $

Event 7: $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha with rebuys

3-day event: Monday, June 4, 2007, to Wednesday, June 7, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 145 Number of rebuys: 450 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 18 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final tablePlace Name Prize1st Burt Boutin (1/2) $2nd Erik Cajelais $3rd Dave Ulliott (0/1) $4th Sirous Jamshidi $5th Minh Ly $6th Larry Jonsson $7th John Juanda (0/3) $ 8th Humberto Brenes (0/2) $ 9th Robin Keston $

Event 8: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em with rebuys

3-day event: Tuesday, June 5, 2007, to Thursday, June 7, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 814 Number of rebuys: 1,814 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 81 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Michael Chu (1/1) $2nd Tommy Vu $3rd Barry Cales $4th Dolph Arnold $5th Shane Schleger $ 6th Michael Gracz (0/1) $7th Amir Vahedi (0/1) $8th Robert Aron $9th Jan Von Halle $

Event 9: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better

3-day event: Tuesday, June 5, 2007, to Thursday, June 7, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 690 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 63 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Alex Kravchenko (1/1) $2nd Bryan Devonshire $3rd John Varner $4th J.R. Reiss $5th Bryan Andrews $6th Yueqi "Rich" Zhu $7th Jordan Morgan $8th Jeffrey Calkins $9th Richard Ashby $ Ninth-place finisher Richard Ashby was eliminated simultaneously along with Ron Ware (10th place) on the final hand of day, 2 by Jordan Morgan. Therefore, he never appeared at the official final table.

Event 10: $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em

3-day event: Wednesday, June 6, 2007, to Friday, June 8, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 1,531 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 153 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Will Durkee (1/1) $2nd Todd Terry $3rd Hunter Frey $4th Justin Bonomo $5th Michael Banducci $6th Stanley Weiss $7th Walter Browne $8th Gil George $9th Ronnie Hofman $

Event 11: $5,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud

3-day event: Wednesday, June 6, 2007, to Friday, June 8, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 180 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 24 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Chris Reslock (1/1) $2nd Phil Ivey (0/5) $3rd David Oppenheim $4th Pat Pezzin $5th Theo Jørgensen $6th Ted Lawson (0/1) $7th Oriane Teysseire $8th Marco Traniello $

Event 12: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em (6-handed) This event was played in a shorthanded format, no more than six players per table, with no more than six players occupying a table at any time during the tournament. 3-day event: Thursday, June 7, 2007, to Saturday, June 9, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 1,427 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 120 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final tablePlace Name Prize1st Jason Warner (1/1) $2nd David Zeitlin $3rd Steve Olek $4th David Mitchell-Lolis $5th Matt Brady $6th Brian Miller $

Event 13: $5,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Hold'em

3-day event: Friday, June 8, 2007, to Sunday, June 10, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 398 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 36 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Allen Cunningham (1/5) $2nd Jeffrey Lisandro $3rd Humberto Brenes (0/2) $4th Jason Lester (0/1) $5th Joe Patrick $6th Travis Rice $7th Gavin Griffin (0/1) $8th Keith Lehr (0/1) $9th Alan Jaffray $

Event 14: $1,500 Seven-Card Stud

2-day event: Friday, June 8, 2007, to Saturday, June 9, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 395 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 40 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Michael Keiner (1/1) $2nd Nesbitt Coburn $3rd Steve Sung $4th Barry Greenstein (0/2) $5th Dale Phillips $6th Greg Raymer (0/1) $7th John Robertson $8th Larry Eubanks $

Event 15: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em

3-day event: Saturday, June 9, 2007, to Monday, June 11, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 2,628 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 270 Winning hand: Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st Phil Hellmuth* (1/11) $2nd Andy Philachack $3rd Rick Fuller $4th Morgan Machina $5th Scott Clements (0/1) $6th David Simon $7th Fabrice Soulier $8th Ut Nguyen $9th Taylor Douglas $ Phil Hellmuth won his eleventh WSOP bracelet, the most of any player. He was previously one of three players with ten bracelets the others being Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson.

Event 16: $2,500 H.O.R.S.E.

3-day event: Saturday, June 9, 2007, to Monday, June 11, 2007 Number of buy-ins: 382 Total prize pool: $ Number of payouts: 40 Winning hand: 6-4-3-2-A-(4–3) (Razz) (card suits do not matter in Razz) Reference:

+ Final table Place Name Prize1st James Richburg (1/2) $2nd Walter Browne $3rd Chris Björin (0/2) $4th Tom Schneider (1/1) $5th Ali Eslami $6th Robert Mizrachi $7th Herb Van Dyke $8th Harry Kazazian $