Phan-tastic!

John Phan is the first double-winner at the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

Phan, who last week won WSOP Event #29, a $3,000 buy-in, no-limit Texas hold ‘em tournament, has now won WSOP Event #40, a $2,500 buy-in, limit 2-7 lowball draw tournament.

The lowball tourney had 238 entrants, payouts to the Top 24 finishers and a total prize pool of about $550,000.

For winning Event #40, Phan, a 33-year-old immigrant from Vietnam who now lives in Stockton, California, USA, collects $151,911.

Combined with the $434,789 he earned for winning Event #29 last week, which was his first career WSOP victory, Phan has amassed a whopping $586,700 for his two crowns.

And two glittering WSOP championship gold bracelets.

Runnerup in Event #40 was Shunjiro Uchida of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, not shunning $95,795.

Third was Gioi Luong of Westminster, California, USA, longing for dough and earning $61,582.

Fourth was Robert Mizrachi of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, USA, with a sunny disposition after earning $41,055.

Fifth was Ben Ponzio of Elmwood Park, Illinois, USA, earning $28,738 without use of a ponzi scheme.

Sixth was Dave Sklansky of Las Vegas, skillfully landing $20,527.

Seventh was Bill Baxter of Las Vegas, boxing $15,053.

Eighth was Steve Sung of Torrance, California, USA, singing about earning $15,053.

Ninth was Mike Wattel of Phoenix, Arizona, USA, earning what? A fee of $12,316.

Tenth was Richard Chase of Malibu, California, USA, chasing down $12,316.

Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, who won the WSOP Main Event in 2004, finished in 11th place in this event, giving residents of the USA the top 11 finishes in the event.

The highest-finishing non-USA resident in the event was Dario Alioto of Italy in 12th.

In all, 22 of the 24 payouts in Event #40 went to residents of the USA.

According to WSOP records, Phan becomes just the ninth person in WSOP history to win multiple gold bracelets at a single WSOP (tenth if you count Chris “Jesus” Ferguson twice, as he’s done it twice).

Others who have accomplished the rare feat are Tom Schneider in 2007, Bill Chen in 2006, Mark Seif in 2005, Ted Forrest in 2004, Ferguson in 2003 and 2000, John Juanda in 2003, Phil “Poison” Ivey in 2002 and Scotty Nguyen in 2001.

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