The 50,000 USD buy in H.O.R.S.E. Event is the second most important event of WSOP, the World Championship No-Limit Texas Hold’em being the most important one. After a grueling 5 days Scotty Nguyen beat the other 147 contestants to win the bracelet, the $1,989,120 first prize and the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy.
The total prize pool for the event was $7,104,000. In the final table Erick Lindgren was in the lead with 3,680,000, Nguyen marginally behind with 3,535,000 and Michael DeMichele in the seventh place with 905,000. Lindgren had to settle for third place and it was DeMichele who went into the head-up play with Nguyen. But the chip stacks were too much in favor of Nguyen for DeMichele to pose any challenge and Nguyen won without any theatrics.
The event gave Nguyen his fifth WSOP bracelet, which has taken a fair time coming. The fourth was won in 2001. Meanwhile the third place catapulted Lindgren to the top of the leader board for the WSOP 2008 Player of the Year.