The World’s Best Player is Eliminated
The WSOPE is back in town and yesterday saw the remainder of Day 1 entrants take to the felt. Some of the biggest names in poker were taking part today as Day 1b kicked off at 12:00pm sharp. They included; Ferguson, Juanda, Lisandro, Obrested, Akenhead, Thew and oh, last but certainly not least, Phil Ivey. But wait, there was another player who may not be known to the poker world at large but is certainly known to Poker Channel Europe readers as ‘yours truly’ entered the fray.
It is quite intimidating playing a WSOPE event – perhaps more so than a WSOP event – because on every table you are sure to be facing well known pros and the smaller field and less qualifiers means that all entrants fancy themselves as players and actually most make their living from the game.
Prior to taking my seat I saw poker legend Doyle Brunson sitting by himself so I walked over and asked him how he enjoyed the ‘Dusk til Dawn’ event and Nottingham in general. We had a nice chat but were interrupted frequently by people asking me if I would take their photo with him. This is the drawback to wearing a media badge although I wished it had said that I was not a photographer but a journalist. After this happened repeatedly I made my excuses and was glad to be relieved of my duties as his official photographer.
The room was at the Empire in Leicester Square was buzzing as the 313 runners set out to play the nine-and-a-quarter levels scheduled for play today. Those 313 were to eventually be whittled down to just 50 by bagging-and-tagging chips time but there were a lot of roller-coaster moments on the way.
Among those who didn’t make it were famous poker faces, including Phil Ivey, Barny Boatman, John Tabatabai, Annette Obrestad Allen Cunningham… and many more, as I said, everywhere you looked there were big names.
Despite that a host of big names still managed to navigate the trap laden rounds including; Ferguson, Levi, Juanda, Parkinson, Lisandro and Yours Truly!
The chip leader from Day 1b is the very entertaining Norwegian Stephane Hansen on circa 45,000 chips – still a long way off the 99,000 that JP Kelly accumulated on Day 1a.
A notable hand from one of the other tables saw reigning WSOPE Main Event Champ John Juanda pushing all in from the button for a total of 3,775 and getting a call from Markus Ristola in the big blind. Although claiming to have played the hand blind, Juanda flipped over J-J whilst Ristola could only muster 4-4.
“Wow, you got some outs,” commented an alert Juanda as the flop came 5-7-8. The 3 on the turn made it close but no cigar, and although the river 2 offered the illusion of a straight, the Jacks were good and Juanda doubled through.
Meanwhile on my table Padraig Parkinson was all in pre-flop with pocket Queens only to be called by pocket Aces. A board of 8-Q-8-2-3 left the Irishman smiling as the gentleman with pocket rockets was left to ponder his bad luck and exited the game.
“We both limped pre and played it perfectly,” lied Parkinson – actually all the chips went in pre-flop. “That was the last Queen in the deck too,” noted his table neighbour Julian Thew. Parkinson was up to 17,000.
Okay, so how was my day? Well after only deciding to play at 1:55pm – the tourney began at noon and the cut-off was 2:00pm. I sat down only to see most people at my table already holding an average of about 8,000 chips compared to my starting stack of 3,000.
So it was a case of remaining cautious and waiting for the right time to pick players off. I grew my stack slowly and eventually got up to about 10,000.
Just as I was getting comfortable with the players at my table and identifying the weaker ones the TD came over an announced we were all moving.
The good news was that I was moving to ‘Table 1’ which was on the centre stage and was one of the featured tables. The news got better after a few hands as none other than Phil Ivey joined our table and was seated two to my left. Now, unless you are very lucky at a WSOP event or very rich the chance to play with Phil Ivey is very unlikely – but here I was.
Sure enough, as he was only two to my left, we were going to tangle – and tangle we did. About twenty minutes into play at the table I looked down at 9-9. It had been folded to me and I raised 2,500 (holding about 14,000 chips) on blinds of 300-600. Ivey thought for a while then announced all-in. I thought for less time and folded face up to see him flash a curious but satisfied smile.
About twenty minutes later I had A-6 and raised once gain after it had been folded around to me. I got two callers, one of which was Ivey. Ivey bet out 1,600 on a 9-J-6 board and I flat called.
The turn came down an Ace and now I led out betting 3,000 from my 17,000 stack. Ivey thought about it for a moment before shoving all-in with A-8. With my two pair I thought for a short while as memories of last year’s WSOPE Main Event flashed through my mind when Dwan eliminated me with two higher pair than mine, but called and had him drawing to stay alive. Ivey could have hit a J or 9 for a chop or an 8 for an outright win but a blank on the river meant that I HAD JUST ELIMINATED PHIL IVEY FROM THE WSOPE. Of course this meant that there was no way now I could ask him if I could interview him for Poker Channel Europe but hey – sorry guys!
The rest of the day saw my chip-stack moving up and down as I lost a huge pot to Julian Thew who called my pre-flop raise with Q-8 and flopped Q-4-4- when I was holding pocket Jacks.
The penultimate hand of the day saw me have some last-minute good fortune after I put a short stack all in with pocket Sixes, only for the short stack to turn over pocket Jacks.
Nevertheless, a Six on the river and the short stack was heading for the door and I will return for Day 2 with about 23,000 chips – that is roughly 30th out of 65 runners. Wish me luck and I will keep you posted.
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