PokerWorks

It's still a day or two away from officially being a month here at the World Series of Poker, but there have been enough significant story lines that it's a good time to review what has happened thus far at the WSOP.

•    The biggest story without a doubt has been the success of Jeffrey Lisandro. He's running away with the Player of the Year race becoming only the 5th player in history to win 3 WSOP bracelets in one year. Can he do the improbable and win 4 in one year? The odds are against him but then again no one probably thought he'd win 3.

•    The last person to win 3 WSOP bracelets in a year was Phil Ivey. Prior to Lisandro's improbable feat, you could have made the argument that Ivey was the story of the 2009 WSOP as he won two more bracelets bringing his lifetime total to 7. Will Lisandro's 3rd fire up Ivey to win another?

•    Poor Brock Parker. Any other year winning 2 bracelets would be “the” story of the year. Instead he's relegated to almost just being another name with the Lisandro/Ivey headlines.

•    Amazing enough, the player in 2nd place in the Player of the Year race is not named Ivey or Parker. Ville Wahlbeck has had an amazing WSOP as well with a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 13th place finish... all in $10,000 buy in events. I think it's safe to say that Wahlbeck brings his “A” game for the bigger buy ins.

•    Players that have won their first bracelet include long time professional poker players like James Van Alstyne, Roland DeWolfe, Steve Sung, Greg Mueller, and Nick Schulman.

•    Perhaps a bigger story is the players that are struggling. Hellmuth has three minor cashes for approximately $24,000. Men Nguyen, 2nd on the all time cashes list, has one cash for 20K. Chris Ferguson, 3rd on the all time cashes list, has one cash for $2,745. T.J. Cloutier... 1 cash for $4,523. Humberto Brenes.. 1 cash for $2,839. Allen Cunningham... 1 cash for $2,745. Mike Matusow is 0 fer so far but has cashed in the Omaha 8 event and is still alive heading into day 3. Last year’s Player of the Year, Erick Lindgren, has four cashes but only for 48K.

•    It's been a relatively drama free WSOP although there have been a few incidents including a huge color up snafu in the 10K PLO tournament and Miami John Cernuto needing to be taken to the hospital in the middle of the Razz tournament. This is sure to change of course once the Main Event gets underway.