Joe Commisso Wins WSOP $ 5,000 buy-in
Six-handed No-Limit Hold'em championship

"Commisso, a cash game player, does not like playing in poker tournaments."

LAS VEGAS, NV – The 2008 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em champion is Joe Commisso, from Las Vegas, NV. He is a 28-year-old poker pro. Prior to playing poker for a living, Commisso was an online day trader (stocks).

Commisso is originally from New Jersey.

Commisso won $911,830 for first place. This was his first WSOP gold bracelet victory. This was his first time ever to cash at the WSOP.

This was only the fifth live tournament Commisso had ever played. He cashed previously at only one major tournament – a WSOP Circuit event held in Atlantic City back in 2005, which paid $3,048.

Commisso, a cash game player, does not like playing in poker tournaments. He even went so far as to say he plans to enter very few tournaments in the future, despite his big victory.

Commisso owns a pug (dog) named “Miles.” He named the dog after jazz great Miles Davis. Commisso stated that he slept only a few hours in the off-time between Days Two and Three. “I got home at 6 am and slept only a few hours,” he said. “Then, Miles woke me up.”

The second-place finisher was Rich Lyndaker, from Chaumont, NY.

The heads-up match between Commisso and Lyndaker was epic in both length and drama. The two finalists played over 200 hands together heads up. By contrast, it took only about 70 hands to eliminate the first four players from the finale.

The heads-up match was quite memorable as Lyndaker managed to double-up an astounding 12 consecutive times against Commisso. On 10 of those 12 hands, the worst hand (at the start) ended up scooping the pot. On the 13th confrontation, with Commisso holding onto a precarious 2 to 1 advantage, he managed to finally bust his stubborn adversary.

The $5,000 buy-in Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em championship (Event #46) attracted 805 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $3,783,500. The top 78 finishers collected prize money.

The prize pool is the largest in WSOP history for this event.

The $911,830 paid to the winner is the highest of any completed event so far at this year’s WSOP.

In 2008, entries increased 11 percent over 2007. Last year, there were 728 entries.

The Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em tournament was first added to the WSOP schedule in 2005. Doyle Brunson won his tenth WSOP gold bracelet in that inaugural event (which tied him with Johnny Chan at the time).

Six-Handed Hold’em emphasizes short-handed poker skills. Rather than a full table of nine players, each table is played six-handed (or less, as players bust out). This generally requires competitors to play cards out of the standard range of starting-hand requirements. It also makes post-flop skill paramount to victory. The game was included on the WSOP schedule as a concerted effort to measure as diverse a range of poker skills as possible.

The defending champion for this event was Bill Edler. He did not enter this tournament. This brings the current streak to 45 straight non-cashes for defending champions in their respective events.

The tournament was played over three consecutive days. Day Two went much longer than expected, lasing about 15 hours. On Day Three, the final table was played on the ESPN main stage and was broadcast live by Bluff Media on ESPN360.

The fourth-place finisher was Sam Trickett, from Nottingham, England. Prior to playing poker, Trickett played professional soccer in England, before he suffered a knee injury and was forced to quit the game.

Davidi Kitai, who won the Pot-Limit Omaha championship (Event #38) just days earlier, made it to his second final table. This time, he finished in sixth place.

The final table began at 2 pm and ended at 11:30 pm, which totaled 9.5 hours of play.

Former WSOP gold bracelet winners who cashed in this event included Eddy Scharf (22nd) and Peter Alana Smurfit (75th).

With his 38th place finish in this event, Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow, Russia tied the record set for “Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year,” shared by five players -- Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth (2006), Richard Tatalovich (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006), with eight. Note: Evdakov was still alive in Event #48 as this tournament ended, which means is close to becoming the first player in WSOP history ever to cash nine times in a single year.

Four players have cashed six times at this year’s WSOP. This list includes – Chau Giang, Rolf Slotboom, Alex Jacob, and Roland Isra.

Winner Joe Commisso is officially listed as being from Las Vegas, NV. Through the conclusion of Event #46 at this year’s World Series of Poker, the gold bracelet count by nations and states reads as follows:
11 – Nevada
7 – California
4 – New York
3—Canada
3 – Germany
2 – Italy
2 – Missouri
1 – Belgium
1 – Denmark
1 – Florida
1 – France
1 – Georgia
1 – Holland
1 – Maryland
1 – Michigan
1 – Ohio
1 – Pennsylvania
1 – Russia
1 – South Carolina
1 – Wisconsin

Nine different nations have produced a gold bracelet winner at this year’s WSOP. This list now includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Russia, and the United States.

The Event #46 winner Joe Commisso is to be classified as a professional player. He has supported himself by playing cash games for over two years. Accordingly, the “Pro-Am” gold bracelet scoreboard currently reads:
Professionals – 33 wins
Amateurs -- 10 wins
Semi-Pros -- 2 wins

Jesper Petersen was the chip leader at the End of Day One in this event. He finished as the 13th place finisher. Through Event #46, the End of Day One chip leaders have gone on to cash 79 percent of the time -- 34 of 43 occasions (the chip leader was not applicable on two events). Twelve of these same 43 chip leaders (28 percent) made it to the final table. Only one chip leader went on to win the event. That lone wire-to-wire winner was Vanessa Selbst in Event #19.

Richard Lyndaker was the chip leader at the start of this final table. He ended up as the second-place finisher. Through Event #46, seventeen of 43 chip leaders at the start of the final table (40 percent) went on to win the event. Twenty-five of 43 chip leaders (58 percent) went on to finish in the top three spots. Two events did not have a chip leader (Heads-Up and Shootout tournaments).

The Milwaukee’s Best Light “Player of the Year” standings currently shows Jacobo Fernandez as the current leader, with David Benyamine close behind. Here are the top five ranked players: 1. Jacobo Fernandez – 227 points 2. David Benyamine – 220 points
John Phan – 215 points
Barry Greenstein – 190 points
Erick Lindgren – 185 points
For a complete “Player of the Year” points list, see: http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/players/2008.asp?sort=poypts

David Benyamine is now the leader on the 2008 prize money list, having won the most money at the WSOP, to date. His accrued winnings total $941,651.

Through the end of Event #46, twenty-eight players have now earned at least $500,000 at this year’s WSOP.

SPECIAL NOTE: On this day, three-time WSOP gold bracelet winner John Bonetti died at his home in Houston, TX. His life and passing were commemorated with a moment of silence at the start of the day. Bonetti will be missed by many in the poker community and the WSOP staff extends its most heartfelt condolences to surviving members of the Bonetti family.

by Nolan Dalla