The result was three winners from New York and plenty more poker action for fans to catch up on.

Event 15

The $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship found its 2008 winner on Tuesday as Svetlana Gromenkova took the chip lead into the final table and walked away with the win.

Gromenkova was born near Moscow, Russia, but immigrated to the United States about six years ago and now resides in New York, N.Y.

Her poker experience includes a cash in a World Series event in 2005 and had two more cashes in the 2007 WSOP. She also cashed in a World Poker Tour event this year, but this is her first major event win.

To get there she had to make her way through a playing field of 1,190 women, and face off against Anh Le, who has been in this position before.

Le made the Ladies Event final table in 2005 as well, where she ended up heads-up against Jennifer Tilly, who went on to win the event.

Le and Gromenkova traded the chip lead back and forth during heads-up play, but eventually Gromenkova got the best of Le.

On the final hand, Le called off her stack with #Ad#6h pre-flop and found herself up against Gromenkova’s pocket kings. The flop brought #Th#8s#7c, which gave Le hope of a gut-shot straight draw, but the turn brought a #Kd to give Gromenkova the set and an #As on the river gave her the win.

The final table played out as follows:

It should also be noted that Patty Till is the second World Series of Poker Ladies Academy graduate to make it to a WSOP Ladies Championship final table. Last year Sally Ann Boyer took down the event just a day after completing the academy.

Other notables who made it into the money this year include Evelyn Ng, Linda Johnson, Van Nguyen, Amanda Leatherman, Kathy Liebert and Nancy Todd Tyner.

Event 16

Ted Forrest was chopped down just short of another bracelet win in the $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Split Eight-or-Better event on Tuesday when Andrew Brown came back from the near dead during heads-up play to earn the win.

The day began with 18 players remaining, but when it finally got down to the final table of nine, Jimmy Fricke, Scott Clements, Ralph Perry and Ted Forrest were all in the mix. In the end it came down to a clash between the five-time WSOP bracelet winner Forrest and the 26-year-old, relatively unknown pro Brown.

After battling back from a severe chip deficit, Brown finally toppled Forrest with a hand of #Jh#2h#4s#5d. The two had seen a flop of #9d#Jd#Ah; Forrest had bet, and Brown had called. With the coming of an #8c, the two went through the same motions, to see a #2s on the river.

Forrest then moved all-in for his last $85,000, and Brown called. Forrest showed #Ad#4dQs#7s, leaving Brown with the win for having jacks and deuces for the high and A-2-4-5-8, which was good for the low as well.

The final-table results were:

Brown said after his win that he considers Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey and Ted Forrest to be the three best poker players in the world, which made his tournament experience all that more memorable going up against Forrest in the end.

“I was looking forward to playing Ted Forrest heads-up,” Brown said. “He’s amazing. We had a see-saw battle. It was a great heads-up match.”

Other pros who made it into the money include Max Pescatori, David Chiu, James Van Alstyne, Miami John Cernuto and Josh Arieh.

Event 17

The third final table of the day, for the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout, also went to a New York resident. Jason Young defeated table after table to finally come out on top of the Shootout event on Tuesday and win $335,565.

There weren’t a lot of well-known names at the final table of the event, but that didn’t make the action any less exciting. The players battled for several hours before finally getting down to the top two - Young versus Mike Schwartz.

From there, play see-sawed as Young took Schwartz to the brink of elimination only to let him back into play, at which point he had to battle even harder for the win.

In the end it came down to a pre-flop raise of $700,000 from Schwartz, with Young responding by putting him all-in if he wanted to play the hand. Schwartz called, showing #4h#4s to Young’s #Ac#Jd.

The flop brought #8d#6d#2h, keeping Schwartz ahead, but the turn brought an #Ah to give Young the bigger pair and a #Qc on the river brought no help for Schwartz either.

The final table played out as follows:

Also making it into the money, although they missed the final table, were Ali Eslami and Minh Nguyen.

Event 18

This may be the only final table playing today, but it’s going to be one nobody will want to miss. Event 18, $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball with Rebuys, drew 85 entries who ponied up a total of 272 rebuys on top of their initial buy-in to create a more than $1.7 million prize pool.

The playing field was small, but the event drew some of the biggest and best names in the game of poker. The evidence of that is in the final table:

Lindgren has a dominating chip lead coming into the final table today, but every one of the players at the final table has a poker resume a mile long and the experience to come from behind for the win.

The players have a combined eight WSOP bracelets, seven World Poker Tour titles and more than $26 million in tournament winnings.

This clash of the titans resumes play today at 3 p.m., and poker fans are going to want to be glued to live updates to see how the cards play out.

Event 19

Nearly 760 players bought into the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event on Tuesday, creating a more than $1 million prize pool. With 72 places getting paid, the 46 players who return to play in Day 2 today are all guaranteed some cash.

However, it’s not just the money that the players are interested in. Many of them will have their eye on at least making the final table today to come one step closer to winning the WSOP gold bracelet.

Leading the pack coming into play is Vanessa Selbst. She has about a $70,000 chip lead over her nearest opponent Anthony Phillips.

Also still in the mix are pros such as Jordan Morgan, Nam Le, Chau Giang, Tony Cousineau, Allyn Shulman and Max Pescatori.

Play resumes at 2 p.m. today.

Event 20

The $2,000 Limit Hold’em also got started on Tuesday, bringing in 480 players. After a day of play, the field is down to 125 with the top 45 getting paid out.

Some of the survivors from Day 1 include Daniel Negreanu, who is high in the chip count, plus J.C. Tran, Amnon Filippi, Matt Matros, Phil Hellmuth, John Phan, Shannon Shorr and more.

They will return to play at 2 p.m. today.

Event 21 and Event 22

At noon today, poker action will begin with the start of Event 21, $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em. Last year this event drew 640 players and was won by James Mackey for a $730,740 cash.

The second event getting its start today is the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. Last year the WSOP hosted two H.O.R.S.E. events - a $5,000 buy-in one and the $50,000 World Championship event. The $3,000 event is new to the schedule this year.

Poker fans can catch all the WSOP action today with live updates, videos, photos, interviews and more in the Live Tournaments section.

Related Articles:

• 2008 WSOP Day 12: Ladies night
• 2008 WSOP Day 12: Brook, Bell win bracelets

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Mathias Smagghe, from Waregem, Belgium, won a $12,500 prize package to the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event after playing in a freeroll at PokerStars over the weekend.

The freeroll was exclusive to players who signed up at the poker site through PokerListings.com. Though the 23-year-old student may just cash out the prize rather than going to the WSOP, he isn’t any less excited about his victory. It was his biggest poker win so far.

“There were a few good players at the final table,” Smagghe said about the playing field. “It was a very aggressive game.”

Smagghe handled the pressure of an aggressive game well, though. In fact, the pressure is one of the things he likes about playing poker.

“It’s a game you can play just for fun with friends, and when it gets more serious, I love the tension of big pots and bluffs that work out fine,” Smagghe said.

He’s only been playing poker for about a year, and his experience includes a weekly game with friends and about two hours each day playing on the Internet as well.

That experience paid off as he finished off his final opponent in the freeroll on a hand where he was holding #7c#6c against #8c#2c. The flop brought them both a flush draw, and Smagghe had hit his seven in the flop as well. So when his opponent went all-in, he called right behind him.

A club failed to hit the board on the turn and the river, and there wasn’t anything else that could help his opponent either, so Smagghe had the win.

If he does decide to head to Las Vegas to use his prize package, Smagghe said he would be very excited and nervous to be playing in the event, especially if he wound up playing against some of his favorite players such as Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen and Daniel Negreanu.

If he could turn his free seat into a win in the Main Event, he would probably try to become a professional poker player and buy himself an Audi s5.

More than likely, Smagghe will just pocket the cash, though.

“I am just a poor last-year student, so I’ll save a part of the money,” he said. “But I am surely going to use some to go on a trip this summer and add a part to my bankroll.”

He currently uses that bankroll almost every day at PokerStars, which he considers the biggest and most reliable site online.

He’s also a regular visitor to PokerListings where he signed up to play at PokerStars and took advantage of the bonuses the poker site has to offer PokerListings players.

“[PokerListings] is a nice site,” Smagghe said. “I love to check the biggest pots of the day.”

PokerListings players at PokerStars will have their last chance to follow in Smagghe’s footsteps this weekend with the poker site’s final two exclusive WSOP freerolls.

Players who earned 500 player points from May 1-31 will be playing for a $12,500 WSOP prize package on Saturday at 3 p.m. EDT, and players who earned 1,000 points during May 1-31 will get to play June 15 at 3 p.m. EDT.

For more information about these and other deals and promotions for PokerListings.com players, head to PokerStars.

Related Articles:

• Akkari flexes poker muscles at PokerStars
• Sunday Million now $215 every week
• PokerStars gives PL.com player time with Negreanu

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Might as well kick off a new thread.

Vids:
APB ‘Shaft’ gameplay.
APB ‘Drive-by’ gameplay.

Gamespot preview.

IGN 360 Preview

Character Creation.

The character creation stuff is immense.

Looking forward to this.