Copyright © 2008 Tom Howze
The 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, which ran from July 3rd until November 10th, is now complete, with 22 year old Peter Eastgate as its new champion. Eastgate received over $9 million US dollars, a beautiful one-of-a-kind diamond bracelet with rubys and permanent fame in the WSOP record books as the youngest champion ever, surpassing Phil Hellmuth Jr. who was 24 years, 10 months and 5 days of age at the time of his Main Event victory in 1989. Eastgate hailing from Odense, Denmark, was 22 years, 10 months and 28 days old when he won the title, witnessed by millions watching the broadcast event on ESPN.
While the edited version of the Main Event condensed the time frame of play, highlighting the turning points between the players, there were still many facts that were not made known.
Final table play officially began at 11:08 am. The first day where 7 of the 9 would be eliminated ended 13 hours and 27 minutes later, at 12:35 am. For the heads-up, action started the next night at 10:34 PM and officially ended at 2:36 am. This means the 15 hours and 39 minutes it took to play became the longest in WSOP history.
When the names of the final table players were established and play stopped on July 15th, they each received $900,670. The balance of prize money was paid out as players were eliminated in November.
All who made the final table were guaranteed $900,670, but Harrah’s actually took it a step further. The $98,179 in interest accumulated on the $24,527,416 remaining pool money during the 117 day furlough was added to the amount for the top 8 finishers. For example, the $9,152,416 for first place was originally $9,119,517.
When the money was brought out two years ago, the weight caused the table holding the cash to collapse. This year officials made sure the money was placed on a reinforced table which was ideal because the $9,152,416 weighted an estimated 500 pounds!
When the tournament ended, Peter Eastgate had the entire 136,900,000 chips that were dealt out to the 6,844 players who began the event.
The prize pool for the Main Event was $64,431,779, making it the second-largest tournament prize pool in history.
Players from 124 nations and territories came to participate in the Main Event.
When Erick Lindgren accepted the award for Player of the Year on the night of the heads up, he ended his speech with a invitation from Doyle Brunson that a cash game was taking place afterwards once Eastgate and Demidov were done. Erick received a custom Harley Davidson motorcycle for his achievement.
On the night of the final table, two players were inducted into the Hall of Fame. They were Dewey Tomko and Henry Orenstein.
Outside of breaks and other recesses, it took Eastgate 80.9 hours to win the title. Play lasted 278 hands from start to finish.
When all was said and done with the Main Event, the 39th WSOP was the largest tournament in history. Cards were dealt to 58,720 players that entered into the 55 gold bracelet events. And that does not even include the WSOP Europe statistics! In total the entire 39th WSOP was so big, it required over 7,000 hours of taping with 40 cameras by ESPN just to get what was seen on television. And with a total prize pool of $180,676,248 that was awarded to players this WSOP season, fans across the planet were able to witness what has been deemed the richest event in the sporting realm.
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