$1K Stimulus Event Reaches First Break
by Brett on 05.30.09, 6:00 pm
We caught Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein (pictured at left) adding some chips to his stack on the last hand before the first break of the $1K No Limit Hold ‘em event. On a board of 8
63
8
5, the player in Seat 8 checked and Greenstein bet 1,600. His opponent thought for awhile before making the call and Barry showed Q8 for trip eights. His opponent mucked and Greenstein left for the break with a stack of around 7K.
Over in the Buzios section of the $1K event, several players are growing frustrated with the speed of play and the lack of tournament staff and information. The area is not so much a room as a large area in the hallway next to the popular Rio seafood restaurant. Because it is a temporary tournament area, there are no tournament clocks, so players are having a difficult time keeping up with how much time is left in the level. Another issue is that players are busting at a rapid rate and it is taking several minutes to fill their open seats. Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul told us play at his table had been paused three times for around five minutes each time to fill in empty seats. On the bright side, he said he’s been running well so far today, even when it comes to what order he looks at his hole cards.
“I keep getting dealt ace rag but I look at the rag first so I don’t get my hopes up. That’s running good,” he explained.
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier (pictured at right) found out another downside of being seated so far from the tournament are when his table need a ruling from a floor person and there were none to be found. After yelling out “Floor! Floor!” for around five minutes they finally got a ruling on whether or not a player’s hand was dead or not. We missed all of the details, but the player had stepped away from his seat and returned after cards had been dealt to him, but before the last card of the hand had been dealt. The debate raged on and for a while and even after a ruling there was still some uncertainty about what the actual rule was.
Amidst the craziness that is the Rio hallway during the break we managed to come across several P5ers, including Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong, Ryan “gutshallin” Welch and Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin. Armstrong is sitting with a stack of 7K, and when we asked how he chipped up, he responded with “the players are just bad.” Welch has increased his stack to 4.5K and Baldwin has 2.7K .
Here’s a look at some other chips stacks as we’re now into Level 3:
Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul - 8.6K
Jon “sketchy1” Eaton - 5K
Chris “BigHuni” Hunuchen - 4.5K
Rob “rgc2005” Chapman - 3K
Justin “Lockdownpokah” Allen - under 3K
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 1.8K
Justin “jurollo” Rollo – 1.8K
Christian “Charder30” Harder – 900
The $1.5K Limit Omaha H/L Event was pushed back to a 3:00 local start time. Players will be seated in the Orange section of the Amazon Room, the same area that the $40,000 No Limit event was played yesterday. The $40K event kicked off at 2:00 and is being played in the Green section of the Amazon room, just behind the ESPN featured table.
