WSOP Event No. 32 Winner Luis Velador

Event No. 32 of the World Series of Poker was a $1,500 buyin No Limit Texas Hold'em Tournament that started on June 17th and finished on June 19th.  The event drew in 2,304 players to create a prize pool of $3,144,960 dollars, but only the top 198 players would cash at the event. 

This was the third of seven $1,500 dollar No Limit Hold'em events on the 2008 WSOP schedule.  There are so many on the schedule because both the game and the buyin are the most popular among most players aside from the Main Event. 

This event has a curse as last year's champion. David Stucke played in the event but didn't cash.  This brings the current streak to 32 straight non cashes for the defending champions in their respective events.

The winner of Event No. 32 was Luis Velador, a 44 year old professional poker player from Lake Elsinore, California.  He has been a proffessional player for 11 years and has played in the World Series of Poker for the last three years.  He won $574,734 dollars and his first WSOP gold bracelet for his first place finish.

He has cashed at all of the events he's entered into including the 2006 and 2007 Main Events.  · “There is lot of dead money in these tournaments,” Velador said. “Sure, there are many good players, too. But these (lower buy-in tournaments) are not like the big ones where all you see is pros.”  “I got hit by the deck yesterday,” Velador stated – in reference to his dominance during the last half of the tournament.

The final top 10 results for Event No. 32 are below.

1 Luis Velador $574,734 Lake Elsinore, California

2 Anthony Signore $366,387 Boynton Beach, Florida

3 Osmin Dardon $243,734 West Covina, California

4 Jae Chung $204,422 Atlanta, Georgia

5 Shane Stacey $166,682 Hyde Park, Vermont

6 Dean Bui $132,088 Seattle, Washington

7 Dany Georges $100,638 Burbank, California

8 Utsab Saha $77,051 Fremont, California

9 Justin Hoffman $53,464 Alpharetta, Georgia

10 Kenneth Hughes $34,594 Baton Rouge, Louisiana