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  John Phan added a World Series of Poker bracelet to his resume when he was crowned the Event #29 Champion. Either he thought that having only one wrist decorated with WSOP gold threw off his personal aesthetic symmetry, or the weight of the jewelry was making him list too much to one side is unclear, but he felt the need to quickly add another one to his collection. About one week and eleven events later, Mr. Phan added some balance to his life by strapping the Event #40 bracelet around the other wrist.



  During his second run for a bracelet, he started in better position than he did during Event #29. In this case he started the day as the chip leader when he had previously had to come from the middle of the pack to claim a victory. He quickly found that being the lead dog didn't really make things much easier. Especially since when looking across the table he saw Robert Mizrachi and David Sklansky staring back at him.



  Fortunately for Phan, on this day the names were bigger than their play. While it is intimidating to see players of that caliber playing for the same prize you are, Sklansky started the day with the shortest stack and lasted about as long at the final table as a Hersey bar at a Weight Watchers convention.



  Sklansky and Mizrachi wasted no time in having a go at each other, Mizrachi trying to add Sklansky's chips to his stack, and David trying to stay alive long enough to give some hope to his attempt to end a twenty-five year WSOP bracelet drought.



  The final conflict between these two giants ended with David Sklansky coming close, but having to accept a 6th place finish.



  Phan was the next to strike by eliminating Ben Ponzio in 5th place, while Mizrachi was having trouble getting any traction at all after knocking Sklansky from the tournament.



  Robert Mizrachi found himself on the wrong end of a three-way pot that also included Shun Uchida and Gioi Luong. Each player drew a pair of cards, and Mizrachi got aggressive, and fired out first on the next round. Both players called his bet, and after taking one card at the next opportunity and watching Luong lead out after the second draw, Mizrachi went all in.



  Uchida decided to test the whole discretion/valor paradigm and left the pot to Luong and Mizrachi. Luong stood pat and Robert Mizrachi took one last card. Gioi showed 10-6-5-4-2, while Robert tabled 8-6-4-2. The Jack he drew was useless, and he was eliminated in 4th place.



  Even though John Phan held the chip lead, the final three went on for hours before somebody fell. The longer things went, the more intense they got. Gioi Luong at one point asked for the rail behind him to be cleared for fear that somebody could see his cards. The paranoia didn't really help his cause, and he was the first of the three to leave the table, leaving John Phan and Shun Uchida heads up.



  When the game became a three handed affair, Phan had the chip lead. As often happens in tournaments, a long encounter does not favor the guy in front, and Shun Uchida had eaten away at John's stack until Phan was no longer the front runner. Shortly before the elimination of Gioi Luong, Phan had reclaimed his chip lead, but just barely. He and Uchida were almost even going into heads-up play.



  Of course, sometimes the numbers don't tell the whole tail, and the relatively even stacks didn't translate into a hard fought final pairing. It took less than an hour for John to dispatch Shun in 2nd place, beating his all in 8-7-6-5-3 with a 7-6-4-3-2 of his own.



  John Phan had claimed his second bracelet in a week. Besides that, he moved into third place for the 2008 WSOP Player of the Year. That should be an interesting race to watch.