Elias and Kopp on Top
by Rich on 07.04.09, 2:10 am
Day 1A of the 2009 WSOP Main Event is in the books and both Darren Elias and Billy “Patrolman35″ Kopp (pictured left) finished the day with just under 100K. Elias (97.9K) and Kopp (98K) are among the chip leaders entering Day 2 and will have plenty of room to work with close to 250 big blinds a piece.
Mike Sexton had been battling a short stack the entire day when he pushed all in on a 5
3
2 board. His opponent thought for a bit before calling with 3
3. Sexton was behind, but drawing holding 54. The 8 on the turn gave Mike the lead.
“C’mon!” his opponent yelled. “Pair the board!”
The river did not pair the board, rather the 6 gave Sexton a straight flush. Mike looked very pleased while stacking his chips and for the first time in a long time he was over the starting stack with 40K.
Kirk “idareyouAA” Banks lost a pot worth over 40K with the nut flush draw, but on the next hand doubled through the same opponent. Banks called a raise pre-flop and the flop fell QT6
. Kirk’s opponent led out for 1.6K and Banks called. The turn was the 4 and Kirk’s opponent moved all in. Banks called with just T8 but was ahead of his opponent’s KJ. The 8 blanked on the river and Kirk doubled to 16K. He will be on the short stack to start Day 2, but has plenty of room to operate.
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier lost a substantial pot towards the end of the night, but managed to recover slightly to end the day with 41.1K. Jason opened for a raise to 775 from under the gun and Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin called from the cutoff. The big blind called as well and checked to Mercier on the JT7 flop. Mercier bet out 1,525 and Vengrin called. The big blind then check-raised 6K total and Jason quickly moved all-in. Vengrin folded and the other player, who was seated on Mercier’s immediate right, stared intently at his opponent.
“What do you have Jason?” he asked. He finally called and tabled 77 for a set of sevens. Jason showed A9 for the nut flush draw as well as a gut shot straight draw. The turn was the 4 and the river brought a flush for Jason with the 4, but it also paired the board to give his opponent a full house and the pot.
On one of the last hands of the night we lost our good friend Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek. Jarzabek opened to 900 from early position with the blinds at 150/300/25. The player directly to his left re-raised to 3K and action folded back to Casey who called. The dealer flopped J62 and Jarzabek check called a 4K bet. Both players checked the A on the turn and Casey checked a third time when the 2 landed on the river. Jarzabek’s opponent bet 8K and Casey grabbed his chips with both hands and shoved all in. The raise was just 10K more and his opponent called. Jarzabek tabled AT and was second best to his opponent’s AK.
Here is our lengthy, but by no means comprehensive, end of day chip counts. There are definitely some P5ers still alive in the event that we just missed at the end of the night, so if you don’t see their name, don’t panic just yet:
Billy “Patrolman35″ Kopp - 98K
Darren Elias (pictured right) - 97.9K
David “Doc Sands” Sands - 91.2K
Daniel “amichaiKK” Makowsky - 90K
Scott “stsitron” Sitron - 86.5K
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 77.6K
Corey “comandr_cool” Burbick - 76.2K
Scott “stpauli11″ Hall - 76K
Lana Maier - 75.6K
Christian “da_professional” Iacobellis - 67.3K
Nick “Grip” Grippo - 67K
Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke - 57K
Amanda “Mandy B” Baker - 56.4K
Matt “mcmatto” Affleck - 55K
Karec “K-Rock2525″ Terrell - 52.2K
Brandon “bgitty” Garrity - 52K
Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen - 50.5K
Frank “Frank1The1Tank” Calo - 50K
Michael “Gags30″ Gagliano - 48K
Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer - 47K
Anthony “D1rtyR1v3r” Nardi - 47K
Thayer Rasmussen - 46K
Jordan “scarface_79″ Smith - 43.5K
Jeff “HB_HITMAN” Anderson - 44.6K
Jordan “Octavian_C” Smith - 43K
Felipe “Mojave14″ Ramos (pictured right) - 42K
Kevin “kice32″ Iacafano - 41.9K
Jay “SEABEAST” Kinkade - 41.6K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 41.4K
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier - 41.1K
Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby - 40K
Phil “USCPhildo” Collins - 39.5K
Mike Sexton - 39K
Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti - 38.5K
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 37K
Aditya “intervention” Agarwal - 36.5K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 33.6K
Jon “sketchy1″ Eaton - 27.3K
Cody “CalBandGreat” Shedd - 25K
Michael “mossified84″ Skomac - 25K
Steve “mcnallyville” McNally - 23K
John “JRD312″ Dolan - 22K
Jason Gray - 21K
Ryan “gutshtallin” Welch - 21K
Ravi “govshark2″ Raghaven - 20K
Steve “thorladen” Weinstein - 17.9K
Kyle “thetruth503″ Zartman - 17K
Kirk “idareyouAA” Banks - 16.6K
Mike “SirWatts” Watson - 16.5K
Kush Patel - 16.5K
Gavin Smith - 15K
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner - 13.4K
Jason “JP OSU” Potter - 12.8K
Steve “stevejpa” Paul-Ambrose - 6.8K
That’s it for Day 1A here at the Rio. Join us tomorrow for Day 1B and the rest of the 2009 Main Event!
