Tag: Ben Lamb

Ben Lamb Takes Down Two POY Awards

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ben lambI don’t think there’s much of a doubt that most of the poker world feels that Ben Lamb was one of the best players in the world this past year.  Lamb was absolutely incredible at the 2011 World Series of Poker, and for his efforts across the board, he has taken down not one, but TWO player of the year awards.  What’s even more impressive about this though?  Try the fact that Lamb is now only the second player in history to win both the World Series of Poker Player of the Year Awards, AND the Card Player Magazine Player of the Year Award.  Lamb made poker look easy at the WSOP this year, and you can bet that this won’t be the last time that we hear his name come up in the talks for Player of the Year.

There were obviously quite a few things that make winning these awards so impressive, but part of it is the fact that Lamb’s efforts at the WSOP were definitely enough to win the WSOP POY Award, but the Card Player Magazine POY Award is based on many different events throughout the year.  Lamb’s cashes this past year came over a span of three weeks at the World Series, but they were so impressive that it locked him in for both awards.  The WSOP Award is over a span of the 55+ Events, which Lamb pulled in results that were almost numbing to read.

For starters, let’s look at his cashes in WSOP Events.  The first came on the 17th of June with a 2nd place, $259,918 payday in a $3k event.  After that he entered two $10k events in the Pot Limit Omaha Championship, and the No Limit Hold’em Six Handed tournament; he went on to win the PLO event to take home $814,436, and finished in 12th in the NLHE for $56,140.  After that came the month of July, in which Lamb pulled in a total of around $4.2 million in winnings, thanks to an 8th place finish in the $50k Players Championship, and his third place finish worth $4 million alone in the Main Event.

For those fans out there who are curious, the only other player to pull off this feat is the great Daniel Negreanu, and this was back in 2004.  Keep an eye out for Lamb in the coming years, as he’s definitely one of the best players in the game today.

Ben Lamb Is On A Roll After Day 2B at the WSOP Main Event

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The 2011 World Series of Poker has narrowed the field down to where everyone still playing is sitting in the same room at the same time.  Day 2B is in the books and Ben Lamb was the leader.  He ended Day 2B with 551,600 chips, which is good enough to give him the overall lead heading into Day 3.  He was followed close by Kevin Saul with 542,200 chips though.  Those are the only two players over the 500k mark in chips.  Out of all the big named players out there, probably the biggest name near the top of the leader board is Patrik Antonius, who has 361k in chips, and is in 12th place currently.

Lamb has played incredible during this World Series, with a 12th place finish in the $10k Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship, an 8th place finish in the $50k Player’s Championship, a 2nd place finish in the $3k Pot-Limit Omaha event, and he also won his first gold bracelet in the $10k Pot-Limit Omaha Championship.  He’s sitting in second place in the Player of the Year race behind Phil Hellmuth, and is in a great spot to make a push in the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event.

Day 2B began with 2,490 players and ended with 1,043 who are advancing on to Day 3.  This sets the total for Day 3 to have 1,866 players who are still alive and pushing for the gold bracelet.  693 players will be paid, meaning that they still need to eliminate nearly two-thirds of the field in order to get into the money.  While a large number of players from the field are shooting for their first gold bracelet, there are seven former Main Event winners who are still alive heading into Day 3, Joe Cada, Robert Varkonyi, Carlos Mortensen, Huck Seed, Phil Hellmuth, Berry Johnston, and Tom McEvoy.  Jamie Gold and Joe Hachem were both still alive heading into Day 2B, but were eliminated before the end of the day.