August 9th was supposed to be the second to last day of play for the Main event of the 37th annual World Series of Poker. Instead, the final table players will get a day off. The reason for the change in schedule started on Friday, August 4th, for the first time during Even 39 all flights were playing together as one. The play was supposed to end at 600 players, but tournament's organizers decided to keep playing through another level or two. Despite the chant of " Six Hundred Players! Six Hundred Players!" the tournament directors decided to end the play with a little over 400 players. This snowballed into Tuesday, August 8th where 27 participants played down to 9, which was supposed to happen on August 9th. As a result, Richard Lee, Erik Friberg, Paul Wasicka, Dan Nassif, Allen Cunningham, Michael Binger, Douglas Kim, Jamie Gold, and Rhett Butler was having a Poker free day - unless they wanted to play in the one-day $1500 No-Limit Texas Holdem Event 45.
Event 43 - No-Limit Texas Holdem
As the fourth of the six "second chance" events wrapped up in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, one man was certainly glad he decided to stick around Las Vegas long enough to play in yet another Texas Holdem Event. Kevin Nathan became the newest WSOP champ.
The last group of players, and their chip counts, were as follows:
| Player, Location | Chip Count | Table | Seat # |
| Jonathan Caplan, London, UK | 40,600 | 85 | 1 |
| Bill Chen, Lafayette Hill, PA | 47,200 | 85 | 2 |
| Kevin Koch, Poughquag, NY | 37,800 | 85 | 3 |
| Can Hua, Rosemead, CA | 79,700 | 85 | 4 |
| Stephen Stockton, Roseburg, OR | 23,800 | 85 | 5 |
| Marc Naalden, Antwerpen, Belgium | 64,500 | 85 | 6 |
| Joel Devries, Columbia | 90,900 | 84 | 1 |
| Juan Carlos Alvarado, McAllen, TX | 37,700 | 84 | 2 |
| Kevin Nathan, Roseville | 47,100 | 84 | 3 |
| Tom McEvoy, Las Vegas, NV | 21,500 | 84 | 4 |
| Randy Holland, Winnetka, CA | 36,500 | 84 | 5 |
| JC Tran, Sacramento, CA | 91,200 | 84 | 6 |
| Bob Feduniak, Las Vegas, NV | 15,500 | 84 | 7 |
Event 44, another "second chance" event, also took place on Wednesday. By the end of Day One of the event the battlefield looked like this:
| Player, Location | Chip Count | Table | Seat # |
| Marcus Collins, Perth, Australia | 70,400 | 85 | 3 |
| Joe Brandenburg, Portland, OR | 61,800 | 86 | 4 |
| Jim Nguyen, St. Petersburg, FL | 60,000 | 86 | 6 |
| Eric Baldwin, Beaver Dam, WI | 58,600 | 86 | 8 |
| Don Rihn, Wisconsin | 47,600 | 84 | 8 |
| John Michael, Henderson, NV | 46,900 | 85 | 2 |
| Kevin Cover, Oyster Bay Cove | 44,100 | 84 | 3 |
| Josh Tieman, Bloomingdale | 37,200 | 84 | 1 |
| Nelson Tum, San Diego, CA | 35,000 | 86 | 5 |
| JJ Joanne Liu, Las Vegas, NV | 32,200 | 84 | 9 |
| Lloyd Shinn, Coppell, TX | 32,000 | 85 | 9 |
| Peter Smyth, Wigan, UK | 30,100 | 85 | 7 |
| Thayer Rasmussen, Orlando, FL | 29,100 | 85 | 5 |
| Stephen Ladowsky, Toronto, Ontario | 27,900 | 86 | 7 |
| Matthew Hilger, Atlanta, GA | 24,700 | 85 | 8 |
| Davood Mehrmand, Frankfurt, Germany | 23,700 | 86 | 2 |
| Robert Perry, Las Vegas, NV | 21,200 | 86 | 9 |
| David Babione, Fremont, CA | 18,800 | 84 | 5 |
| Tommy Chaney, Marble Falls, TX | 15,500 | 84 | 5 |
| Brent Carter, Oak Park, IL | 8,600 | 86 | 3 |
| Mel Judah, London, England | 7,500 | 84 | 2 |
| Denise Molloy, La Jolla, CA | 5,600 | 85 | 4 |
Emerging from the mists as the victor of the second to last event of the World Series of Poker was Kevin Cover claiming $196,968 and the bracelet as his spoils.
