On the final hand of Event #34, Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin (pictured left) and Jonas Klausen got it all-in in a classic race situation:

Baldwin: TT
Klausen: AQ

The KJ6 flop gave Klausen two more outs, but the 6 on the turn took those outs away. The 5 on the river ended it all and Baldwin’s rail erupted. Klausen will walk away in second place with $322,371 and Baldwin will ship $521,932. For Eric this is his first WSOP Gold Bracelet and we extend our congratulations!

WSOP 2009 EVENT #36 $2K NLHE

P5ers Shaun Deeb, Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich and Bryan Micon were seated at the same table during the last level, and they were all got involved in this hand.

With the blinds at 500/100 with an ante of 100, Deeb raised to 2.3K before the flop and Rich called. Micon then made it 5K more. The action folded back to Deeb who thought for a few moments before announcing all in. Rich folded his hand and Micon called. Deeb’s AQ dominated the AJ of Micon, but Micon went ahead on the JT4 flop. The Q fell for Deeb on the turn, though, and the A on the river sealed the hand for Deeb.

A little while later Rich was all in with his queens trailing the aces of another player. Deeb told us he actually folded a queen in the hand, but the last one in the deck fell on the river and Rich found himself sitting behind one of the biggest stacks in the room at the end of the night.

Jason Gray saw his stack balloon in the last couple of levels. In one particular hand, he raised to 2.4K from late position with the blinds at 500/1000/100. Lika Gerasimova called from the big blind, and the two took a flop of A65. Gerasimova led out for 3.6K and Gray called. The two checked the 3 on the turn, and Lika checked the 7 on the river too. Gray thought about value betting, but instead checked behind. Jason saw that his A9 was good and scooped the pot. After a low point of 3.7K, he finished the night with 122.7K

Michael “Benvo123” Benvenuti and roomate Steve “PiKappRaider” Burkholder were both eliminated before the end of play. Benvenuti made a re-raise before the flop with A-Q and eventually decided to call the subsequent all in of his opponent. He couldn’t improve against the other player’s pocket tens and he was gone. Don “dbase22″ Yucius was eliminated too.

Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich – 128.9K
Jason Gray - 122K
Jordan “scarface_79” Smith - 110K
Brett “threatnasty” Switzer – 109.9K
Shaun Deeb – 88.5K
Christian “charder30″ Harder — 75K
Darus “BejoMas” Suharto – 74.2K
Jeremiah “Believer82” Vinsant – 45.5K
Karec “K-Rock2525” Terrell – 43.9K (pictured right)
Jack “doctor_fun” Powell — 40K
Thomas “plzlemmewin” Gabriel – 36.4K
Jason “JAKoon1985” Koon – 31.8K
Robert “CamasGoose” Goodson – 29.3K
Corey “comandr_cool” Burbick – 27.3K
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby — 21.6K

Day 1 of Event #36 has come to a close with 213 players remaining. They will all return tomorrow for the 2 p.m. restart.

WSOP 2009 EVENT #35 $5K PLO

• June 19, 2009 -- No, Eric…He Probably Won’t
• June 18, 2009 -- ‘Basebaldy’ Busts ‘ElKy”
• June 19, 2009 -- Burkholder Fires Three Times With Bullets
• June 19, 2009 -- Goodnight from the Rio!