Granted it's still very early on in this 2008 World Series Of Poker, but already you'd be tempted to list Event #2, the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tourney, as one of the biggest stories of the Series. Not only did this event attract 3,929 players, enough to make it the biggest WSOP preliminary event ever, but this scheduled three day contest lasted so long, it was close to being the longest running preliminary event as well.

Day 3 began yesterday with 18 players instead of 9 as originally planned, due to the previous day's session lasting almost 16 hours. When the players returned for day 3 they were most likely still groggy from playing till 6:00 in the morning the day before, but unfortunately for them, Day 3 was destined to take almost as long, with cards still being dealt at 3 am.

The final group of 18 did not help matters either, despite the huge starting field of mostly amateurs, the final two tables still contained numerous big name pros including Theo Tran, Perry Friedman, Minh Nguyen and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, who weren't about to make things quick and easy for anyone. Of these pros, Ferguson made it the furthest, finally bowing out in third place for $388,287, leaving James Akenhead and Grant Hinkle to battle for the final spot. The heads-up portion of the event lasted another painful 2 hours and was on the verge of lasting quite a bit longer, when Hinkle accidentally found himself in a huge all-in pot with nothing but the 10,4 of diamonds, against Akenhead's Big Slick. Mercifully though, "The Hinkle" not only paired but made quads, giving Grant the title, the bracelet, and the $831,462 first prize.

A stunned James Akenhead had to settle for $520,219.

For story in it's entirety, please visit the Independent Online Poker Authority, PokerNews.com