What’s in the water in Madison?

That’s Madison, Wisconsin, USA, long famous as the hometown of poker champ Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr., owner of a world-record 11 World Series of Poker (WSOP) championship gold bracelets.

Something must be in the water in that backwater that produces good poker players, because the winner of Event #28 at the 2008 WSOP in Las Vegas is also from Madison (and also named Phil).

And, amazingly, Hellmuth finished in eighth place in the same event!

Event #28 was a $5,000 buy-in, pot-limit Omaha tournament with rebuys that had 152 entrants, 18 payouts and a total prize pool of about $3.1 million.

The winner, little-known poker pro Phil Galfond, 23, of Madison, earned a tidy $817,781.

It was his first career WSOP gold.

Finishing second was Adam Hourani of East Lansing, Michigan, USA, collecting $493,748.

Third was Dave Benyamine of Paris, France, pocketing $316,307.

Fourth was Johnny “The Orient Express” Chan of Cerritos, California, USA, snagging $246,874.

Fifth was Kirill Gerasimov of Moscow, Russia, taking home $192,870.

Sixth was John Juanda of Marina Del Rey, California, USA, scarfing $154,296.

Seventh was Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, hauling away $123,437.

Eighth was Hellmuth, who now lives in Palo Alto, California, USA, collecting $100,292.

Ninth was Brian Rast of Poway, California, USA, earning $84,863.

Tenth was Chris “Jesus” Ferguson of Pacific Palisades, California, USA, winning $69,433.

According to the WSOP, the final table at this event set a record.

The final table of nine players, which included four players who have won WSOP gold bracelets, boasted a combined 28 WSOP gold bracelets among those four.

That’s a record for most gold bracelets represented at any final table of any WSOP event ever.

The tally: Juanda with three bracelets, Negreanu with four, Chan with 10 and Hellmuth with 11.

The previous record for most gold at a WSOP final table was the final table at the 2006 WSOP, a $50,000 buy-in, H.O.R.S.E. tournament.

That table boasted a total of 27 bracelets.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)