An Entrance And An Exit
by Court on 09.26.09, 11:08 am
A quick start in a poker tournament is always nice, but often it doesn’t mean much. Day 1 chip leaders rarely go on to win a tournament, or even make the final table. So if a day ending chip lead means relatively little a lead during the first level of a tournament is worth even less. Case in point here at the World Series of Poker Europe: Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman.
Moorman (right) quickly jumped up to over 50k but then dropped back down to around 40k after doubling Christian “charder” Harder when Chris ran his pocket aces into a set. Another huge starting hand ended his day when he picked up pocket kings and got all the action he wanted from Andy Black, who ended up having aces. A king on the flop looked like salvation for Moorman but an ace on the river sent Moorman back to the fens while making Andy Black the early chip leader. Black finished the second level of play with around 90k.
While a talkative, and running good, Andy Black keeps his table involved in chatter he is being outdone by Mike Matusow at the feature table just behind the table where Black is sitting. Matusow can be heard through the separating barrier between his table and the media area which happen to be back to back, and from the vantage point of the media room it seems that he has not stopped the talking, at a loud enough volume to be heard in another section of the casino, for the full 3 hours of play that have passed so far. While he has been losing red or black prop bets Mike also found time to win a coinflip with pocket queens against the AK of Ludovic “Cutsss” Lacay to eliminate the Lacay from the event.
With just over 40k Ben “MilkyBarKid” Grundy is at the third table in the room with Matusow and Black and his table is pretty much silent in comparison to the other two, with Phil Ivey sitting across from Ben, silently getting a massage throughout the first two levels of play. For space the upstairs feature table room is the best spot in the room while many of the other areas have tables so close the chairs back up against each other and dealers are squeezing in to make their pushes as they move from table to table. In the tight under the stairs section Darren “darrenelias” Elias has been hiding under his hood while building his stack to around 35k after getting as low as 20k earlier in the day. Nadeem “Deemer6″ Riaz hasn’t been able to get anything going so far and has bled down to just under 22k. Christain Harder had recovered to around the starting stack but has quickly dropped back down to just over 10k.
Phil Hellmuth made his big entrance during the second level of play, coming in with guys in armor but being forced to abandon his chariot well outside of Leicester Square where no vehicles are allowed and with part of his entourage (the young scantily clad female part) not allowed entrance to the casino due to lack of ID. Somehow the impression is that a majority of people out on the streets of London, and working security at the Casino at the Empire, don’t know and don’t care who Phil Hellmuth is.
Next up on the slate is the 150 / 300 blind level.
