WSOP 2008
End of Day 1A
by Court on 04.20.08, 3:23 am
After a fairly short day the players have bagged up their chips and headed out into the Bellagio to find dinner. Tomorrow a new set of players will take their turn on the felt and on Monday the remaining players from the two day ones will combine for day 2 play.
Billy Baxter (167,150), Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken (163,675) and Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis came out of the day at the top of the chip counts and will be in good shape coming into day 2 play, though there is still a long way to go. This tournament is scheduled to last until April 26th, leaving 7 more days of action before a champion is crowned. The top 100 make the money though since the registration number finally cracked the 400 mark so the money bubble will come fairly early as almost a quarter of the field gets paid.
Other Chip Counts From Day 1A:
Dario Minieri - 118,650 (right)
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 104,275
Tim “TMay420″ West - 84,925
Barry Greenstein - 76,950
Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll - 67,625
Cliff “JohnyBax” Josephy - 59,700
Shane “Shaniac” Schleger - 49,400
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner - 45,650
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 28,925
Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham and Jon “FieryJustice” Little were among those that did not make it through the day, joining Eric “EFro” Froehlich and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements on the sidelines before the completion of day 1A.
Last Level
by Court on 04.19.08, 10:42 pm
As deep as the stacks are, day 1A is winding down before really got going. Players are in the 5th level of the day and after completing the 300/600 with a 75 ante level they will be done for the night. Most of the field is still intact though there have been enough bustouts to clear all the tables in the poker room into the Fontana Lounge.
Eric “EFro” Froehlich (left) lost a chunk of chips early in the day when he ran into a full house and didn’t last long after that. As play starts on the last level of the day his seat has been filled by Brad Booth. The board shows 380 remaining players, but that number reflects everyone that played today along with all the people that have already signed up for tomorrow’s action.
Clements Busts
by Court on 04.19.08, 9:06 pm
Each player that won a World Poker Tour event this season received a seat into the WPT Championship as part of their first place prize. Scott ” BigRiskky” Clements (right) earned his seat with a victory at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls. Scott won the North American Poker Championship worth just under $1.5 million dollars.
He won’t be following that up with another victory here though. Clements became one of the early eliminations, falling to another WPT season 6 champion Brandon Cantu. Clements pair and a straight draw was no good against Cantu’s flopped nut straight and the hand sent Clements to the rail while vaulting Brandon up towards the top of the chip counts with just under 80k.
Early Action, Big Pots and Basketball
by Court on 04.19.08, 7:22 pm
Usually a few levels into a tournament the stories that begin to emerge are the few big stacks. In this room almost everyone is a ig stack, relative to the blinds. The 50k starting stack is where most of the field is still hovering in chips, a few thousand chips on either side, though some have moved up considerably and of course the chips had to come from somewhere so others are seeing their stacks dwindle.
So far the big winner has been Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis. He was able to rake in a pot worth what looked to be over 120k from Guy Laliberte of Cirque du Soleil fame. It was a confusing pot that required a floor decision on the river. With over 60k in the pot and a board reading {Qc9c8d}7
8 Laliberte somehow exposed his hand and said call. He had JT for a straight but seemed to be under the impression that Billirakis had not bet.
Steve had said all in, and Laliberte had said call in some context, though it was after his hand had been exposed. There was no real argument since everyone including Guy agreed he had said call and he had to add another 28,900 to the already large pot. Guy had headphones on and did not know he was calling an all in and Billirakis found himself on the good end of both a rivered full house {9s9h} and a technical mistake from his opponent.
The field for today is small, under 200 players, but for some reason it has still been divided between the Fontana Lounge and the poker room. While the majority of the action is in the Fontana Lounge, there are a handful of tables being played in the normal poker room. Peter “#1Pen” Neff, Shane “Schaniac” Schleger, Tim “Tmay420″ West, David “Nutsrt84444″ Redlin, Corey “UGOTPZD” Carroll, and Dario Minieri are among those in the poker room awaiting a table break before they are moved to the main area.
Neff was able to pick up a nice pot with the {AhKc} in the big blind. With a few players in hand on the {Kh5h2c} flop and about 4k in the pot Neff checked and then called a 3k bet from another player. The two were heads up on the T
turn and Neff again check called, this time a bet of 7,500. The river was the A
and both players checked. Peter showed his two pair and raked in the pot after his opponent mucked.
While some players have been able to build their chips, others have seen their fate go in another direction. Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld is down to 23k after two levels of play, running big hands into bigger ones but minimizing his losses enough to still maintain almost half of his starting stack. Eric “EFro” Froehlich is down to 21k going into the third level after running into a full house.
Even though this is one of the biggest tournaments of the year, there are still things going on outside the poker world. The playoff game between San Antonio and Phoenix has one table of poker players fixated. With the game going into multiple overtimes table 62 had more players watching the basketball game than the action at their table. Barry Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Mike Sexton, Hoyt Corkins, and Lee Markholt were all turned and focused on the game while a hand was played out at the table. Once the Spurs finally sealed the deal everyone seems to be back into the poker action. At least until the Dallas New Orleans game gets into the fourth quarter.