WSOP 2008
One Level, 6 Players Down
by Court on 10.01.08, 10:31 am
After Tim “Tmay420″ West was eliminated to start the day the rest of the first level of play saw a full handful of players join him. Andy Bloch was the next out, finishing in 23rd with Perttu Bergius and Mel Judah being the next to go. As the level wore on Andre Torsvik found himself yet another victim of a hot John Juanda who is distancing himself from the field.
Torsvik’s 20th place finish left the field one elimination away from being down to two players. It wasn’t long until the short stacked Erik Seidel became the 19th place finisher, earning £28,960 or the US equivalent of $51,560.
Eliminations were not the only story in the early going though. Justin “Boosted J” Smith took a hit when his pocket jacks lost a large pot to AT all in preflop, but he still finished the level with a solid 540k. The story of the level was John Juanda (left), doing the dirty work and eliminating player after player while adding to his stack which is now just over 1.1 million chips and nearly twice the second largest stack of 600k. Players who are no more thanks to Juanda include Andy Bloch, Mel Judah, and Andre Torsvik. At this pace Juanda will have the WSOPE down to the final table in a few more hours.
Peter “#1Pen” Neff gained a little ground in the first level, finishing with 333k, and uptick of about 50% from the 213k he started the day with.
The players are sticking around after the end of the level while the 500 chips are being colored up. Once the color up and break are complete the second level of play for the day will commence. Here are some chip counts from the final 18:
John Juanda - 1,110,000
Justin “Boosted J” Smith - 540,000
Daniel Negreanu - 450,000
Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman - 340,000
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 333,000
Soren Kongsgaard - 256,000
Brian “sbrugby” Townsend - 215,000
Mike Matusow - 211,000
Here are the payouts for the final 18 spots in British pounds:
1st £868,800
2nd £533,950
3rd £334,850
4th £271,500
5th £217,200
6th £171,950
7th £135,750
8th £108,600
9th £81,450
10th - 12th £54,300
13th - 15th £45,250
16th - 18th £36,200