Jennifer Tilly is playing for all the marbles in the $5000 No Limit Holdem game at the 2007 WSOP
It continues to be a history-making year at the 2007 World Series of Poker. In the opening week, the youngest WSOP bracelet-winner record as well as the non-main event field-size records were smashed, and two more records came crumbling down this week.
Phil Hellmuth guaranteed himself a spot in the WSOP history books when he won the main event at only 24 years of age back in 1989. Since then Hellmuth has been a consistent winner at the WSOP and proved this week he may very well be the best poker player alive in the world today. Heading into this year’s WSOP, Hellmuth shared the record for WSOP bracelets won with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan at 10. Hellmuth passed both poker legends this week by winning his 11th WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tourney. The win was even more impressive because Hellmuth outlasted a huge field of 2628 players. That was the largest field in any tournament that Hellmuth has won.
The win gave Hellmuth his 59th career WSOP cash finish, which puts him five ahead of the next player in line. He’s also gaining on T.J. Cloutier for the WSOP final-table record. Cloutier has made it to 39 WSOP final tables in his lifetime, while Hellmuth’s total now stands at 38. Don’t be surprised to see Hellmuth reach or even eclipse that mark before the 2007 WSOP comes to an end.
While Hellmuth was making his record-setting bracelet charge, the best female poker players in the world were coming together to set their own record. The $1,000 No Limit Hold’em Ladies Only tournament kicked off earlier this week with a record-setting field. There were 1286 women packed into the Rio’s Amazon room when the tournament began, which surpassed last year’s record-setting field of 1128. (Read that story here!)
The largest women-only poker tournament ever played was won by Sally Boyer, who cleared $262,077 in what was her first-ever WSOP tournament. With the number of female poker players increasing every year, it might be too long before a woman takes home poker’s ultimate prize – the WSOP $10,000 World Championship main event.
