WSoP Main Event, Day 1b
The second of the three "Day 1's" at this year's WSoP Main Event is in the books. For the record, I might have been off a bit concerning the overall number of participants in this year's Main Event.
According to the folks at PokerWire, 1885 people started on Day 1a. At the end of the day, 663 of those 1885 people remained alive in the tournament. For Day 1b, which I'll get to momentarily, 1878 players began play on Friday morning, and when things wrapped up on Friday night there were 606 players left. Based on those numbers, we're looking at a total field of about 5600 players. . .a field that, by this time tomorrow, will have been whittled down to approximately 18-1900 or so.
Apparently, PokerStars sent 1100+ players to the Main Event, or roughly 20% of the entire field. At $10,000 a piece, that means they spent approximately $11.5 million in entry fees alone. Not to mention that a lot of those guys are having their hotels paid for by PokerStars, and got $1,000 in spending money from the site as well. Hopefully, the HeartPunch Poker Room will be up and running by 2007 so that we can make this kind of money.
Or not.
Anyway, some of the more notable eliminations from Day 1b were. . .
Phil Hellmuth (YAY! Hopefully ESPN will have a meltdown to show. He went out on a hand where he had the most evil hand in poker, AQo.)
Daniel Negreanu (BOO! I like Kid Poker.)
Annie Duke
Juha Helppi
Phil Gordon
Cindy Violette
John "World" Hennigan
Evelyn Ng (BOO again. Less eye candy in the Main Event is always a cause for a frown.)
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Erick Lindgren
Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari
David "Last Year's Runner-Up" Williams
Hasan Habib
The Day 1b chip leader, and the overall chip leader to this point, is Haakon Waerstad. I have no idea who he is, but he's got $169,200 in chips right now. (The Day 1a leader, Lee Watkinson, had $145,800 at the end of that heat.) Second place in the second group is held by one of my personal favorites, Mr. Sammy Farha, with $156,600 in chips.
Other notable names from Day 1b (in the order they appear on the PokerWire Day 1b chip count) include Dutch "The Pathetic Fucking Criminal" Boyd (not his official nickname, mind you. . .although it should be), Young Phan, Barry Shulman, Amir Vahedi, Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Chip Reese, Cecelia Mortensen, John Tobias, Dan Harrington, Paul Phillips (hopefully wearing his "JOPKE" hat), Bradley Berman, David Sklansky, and Chris Moneymaker (hey, at least he made it past Day 1 this year).
Also, I need to pimp Tao of Poker for the best damn live WSoP coverage on the 'net. Run by a guy named Pauly (not Big Fat Pauly, to my knowledge), he's blogging live from the World Series. And getting paid for it. Some of his articles have even been posted at FoxSports.com.
It's okay to admit you hate your job right now. Almost therapeutic, actually.
According to the folks at PokerWire, 1885 people started on Day 1a. At the end of the day, 663 of those 1885 people remained alive in the tournament. For Day 1b, which I'll get to momentarily, 1878 players began play on Friday morning, and when things wrapped up on Friday night there were 606 players left. Based on those numbers, we're looking at a total field of about 5600 players. . .a field that, by this time tomorrow, will have been whittled down to approximately 18-1900 or so.
Apparently, PokerStars sent 1100+ players to the Main Event, or roughly 20% of the entire field. At $10,000 a piece, that means they spent approximately $11.5 million in entry fees alone. Not to mention that a lot of those guys are having their hotels paid for by PokerStars, and got $1,000 in spending money from the site as well. Hopefully, the HeartPunch Poker Room will be up and running by 2007 so that we can make this kind of money.
Or not.
Anyway, some of the more notable eliminations from Day 1b were. . .
Phil Hellmuth (YAY! Hopefully ESPN will have a meltdown to show. He went out on a hand where he had the most evil hand in poker, AQo.)
Daniel Negreanu (BOO! I like Kid Poker.)
Annie Duke
Juha Helppi
Phil Gordon
Cindy Violette
John "World" Hennigan
Evelyn Ng (BOO again. Less eye candy in the Main Event is always a cause for a frown.)
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Erick Lindgren
Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari
David "Last Year's Runner-Up" Williams
Hasan Habib
The Day 1b chip leader, and the overall chip leader to this point, is Haakon Waerstad. I have no idea who he is, but he's got $169,200 in chips right now. (The Day 1a leader, Lee Watkinson, had $145,800 at the end of that heat.) Second place in the second group is held by one of my personal favorites, Mr. Sammy Farha, with $156,600 in chips.
Other notable names from Day 1b (in the order they appear on the PokerWire Day 1b chip count) include Dutch "The Pathetic Fucking Criminal" Boyd (not his official nickname, mind you. . .although it should be), Young Phan, Barry Shulman, Amir Vahedi, Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Chip Reese, Cecelia Mortensen, John Tobias, Dan Harrington, Paul Phillips (hopefully wearing his "JOPKE" hat), Bradley Berman, David Sklansky, and Chris Moneymaker (hey, at least he made it past Day 1 this year).
Also, I need to pimp Tao of Poker for the best damn live WSoP coverage on the 'net. Run by a guy named Pauly (not Big Fat Pauly, to my knowledge), he's blogging live from the World Series. And getting paid for it. Some of his articles have even been posted at FoxSports.com.
It's okay to admit you hate your job right now. Almost therapeutic, actually.
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