Football
Andrew Feldman, ESPN.com 15y

Jeff Lisandro takes home 3rd win in '09

Event 43 | Event 45

I don't know how many of these recaps I've started off with "wow," but here's one more. Wow. With the huge field sizes and improvement among players around the world, never did I expect to see a triple-bracelet winner in the near future of the WSOP. Predictably, I was wrong, as Jeff Lisandro won Event 44, the $2,500 razz event, to win his third bracelet of 2009 and the fourth of his career.

Lisandro beat out 315 players, and if it is even possible to say in regard to a poker tournament, he did it quite easily. Once players reached the money it really was the "Jeff Lisandro Show," as he accumulated a stack that nobody could touch. With five players remaining he had more than 50 percent of the chips in play. With three players left, his opponents only had a few big bets apiece. As he eliminated opponent after opponent, Lisandro made his way toward poker history by becoming only the fourth player since 1973 to win three bracelets in one World Series of Poker.

The company that he joined? Not too shabby. Phil Hellmuth (1993), Ted Forrest (1993) and Phil Ivey (2002) also accomplished the feat, but none of those three defeated a field size bigger than 284 players. Lisandro's first victory, in
Event 16, came in a $1,500 seven-card stud event with 359 players, and his second bracelet came in Event 37, the seven-card stud world championship, with 164 players putting up $10,000 each. Event 44 marked the largest Razz prize pool in WSOP history, with first place paying out $188,390. In total, Lisandro has won $745,021 and is currently leading the race for Player of the Year.

A man of few words, Lisandro simply said, "It feels good," after running over the final table in only two hours and 40 minutes. There are still 10 more bracelets to be won in Las Vegas this summer (and an additional four at WSOP-Europe) and everyone is wondering whether Lisandro could accomplish a quadruple-bracelet WSOP.

Other notable finishers included Michael Craig (second), Kenna James (sixth) and Ville Wahlback (12th).

Below are the complete results of Event 44:

Event 44: Razz
Buy-in: $2,500
Entries: 315
Prize pool: $724,500
Players in the money: 32

1. Jeffrey Lisandro ($188,390)

2. Michael Craig ($116,405)

3. Ryan Fisler ($76,260)

4. Warwick Mirzikinian ($52,772)

5. Eric Rodawig ($38,470)

6. Kenna James ($29,472)

7. Steven Diano ($23,669)

8. Allen Bari ($19,880)

9. Don Zewin ($15,569)

10. Al Barbieri ($15,569)

11. Bill Cole ($12,736)

12. Ville Wahlbeck ($12,736)

13. Nikolay Evdakov ($10,106)

14. H. G. Houston ($10,106)

15. Gregory Pappas ($7,860)

16. Travis Trail ($7,860)

17. Joseph Michael ($6,085)

18. Joe Tehan ($6,085)

19. Gregory Alston ($6,085)

20. Matthew Hawrilenko ($6,085)

21. Alexandra Vuong ($6,085)

22. Matt Affleck ($6,085)

23. Lionel Longson ($6,085)

24. Yan Chen ($6,085)

25. Tad Jurgens ($4,745)

26. Rich Morrella ($4,745)

27. Mike Kinney ($4,745)

28. David Chiu ($4,745)

29. David Sklansky ($4,745)

30. Serge Ravitch ($4,745)

31. Mike Baxter ($4,745)

32. Romik Vartzar ($4,745)

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