Event #2: No-Limit Texas Hold 'em
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Buy-in: $300 (+30)
Number of Entries: 847
Total Prize Money: $246,477

On Thursday, May 19th, no one paid attention to quiet, mild-mannered Jose Jimenez, a 28-year-old Mexican immigrant en route from Ohio to Mexico, sat down amongst a swarm of 847 bodies. By the end of Day One, some players began to take notice. In the largest poker tournament yet on this year's circuit, 72 places were paid. With $246,477 in prize money at stake, players were eliminated as follows:

10th Place: Gene Grimaldi, $2,710
On the very first hand of play, New Orleans loan officer Gene Grimaldi took a walk. He was short-stacked with 17,000 (blinds were 6,000-12,000) and committed his last chip with K-7. Unfortunately, the marginal hand was dominated by K-10. A ten on the flop left Grimaldi drawing slim and he lasted all of 90 seconds at the final table.
9th Place: Sean McCabe, $4,930
Sean McCabe went out a few hands later. McCabe moved all-in with K-J and found himself dominated by Jose Jimenez's A-J. An ace on the flopped pretty much left McCabe watching from the rail.
8th Place: Nick Graphia, $7,395
Nick Graphia, age 54, looks every bit like what one would expect from his profession, that of a private investigator. The gruff Baton Rouge-based P.I., who also plays in high-limit cash games, was short-stacked during his half-hour stay at the final table. He had the best hand before the flop with K-J versus J-8, but an eight sealed Graphia's doom.
7th Place: Rick Klibert, $9,860
Rick Klibert arrived with a big stack, but suffered a bad run at the final table. The IT specialist was disconnected when his A-K was all-in against 9-9 and failed to connect. Klibert lost the proverbial "coin flip" hand.
6th Place: Mario Orozco,$12,325
Mario Orozco, a professional poker player from Dallas, has made several final tables in the last few years. He cashed 30 times in 2004. But 6th place was as high as Orozco could go in this event, as his pocket 9s lost to pocket kings.
5th Place: Todd Senser, $14,790
Next, it was Todd Senser's turn to hit the bricks. Playing in his first tournament ever, Senser, a retail manager from San Antonio, pulled off an astounding performance, outlasting 842 players. On the final hand, his A-7 was bulldozed by Jose Jimenez's pocket kings.
4th Place: Darrell Hardin, $17,255
Darrell Hardin received most of the cheers from the crowd when players were introduced. But the cheers turned to silence when Hardin went card dead near the end of the tournament and ended up losing with a desperate hand (K-3) against A-Q. An ace on the turn put Hardin out in 4th place.
3rd Place: Dewey Morris, $19,720
Incredibly, only an hour had passed by and play was three-handed. Dewey Morris, a 60-year-old retired businessman from Nashville tried to make a steal on the button with J-7, but was called by Jimenez in the blind holding 6-6. With two overcards, Morris wasn't in as bad a shape as he might have thought. But the final board failed to make a pair for Morris and the senior member of the final table was retired.
Runner up: Ron Medlin, $34,875
1st Place: Jose Jiminez, $66,527
The heads-up duel between Jose Jimenez and Ron Medlin began with Jimenez holding a 2 to 1 chip advantage. Heads-up play lasted 15 minutes, a virtual marathon by rollicking New Orleans final table standards. Yesterday's event clocked in at a lightning-fast 2 hours and 20 minutes and this final table made that look like a full-day's work on a chain gang. This final table was settled in just 85 minutes, which may very well be a World Series of Poker record, dating back to the inception of the first tournament in 1970. Considering not nine, but ten players started at this finale, the quick pace had to be history-making. The final hand came when Medlin went all-in with A-7 and was called instantly by Jimenez, holding pocket kings. The board showed Q=6=4=8=9, and no ace meant that Jimenez was the winner. Medlin collected a nice consolation prize -- $34,875 for 2nd place.

View final results.

Tournament reporting by Nolan Dalla / worldseriesofpoker.com