World Poker Tour Championship - $25,000 buy in Main Event - Day One
With the poker room here being renovated, the main event of the World Poker Tour Championship was (mostly) held in a room called the Fontana Bar. The Fontana Bar has a small stage, which works out well as an elevated area for the "featured table". But every table here is a featured table. With 452 of the finest poker players in the world ponying up $25,000 each, only the cr��me de la cr��me of the poker world are here playing. For example, here are ? of the players at table seventeen: Phil Ivey, John 'World' Hennigan, TJ Cloutier, Steve Z, Michael "Grinder" Mizrachi, and Jim McManus.
The Bellagio is such a great environment, and in fact, our 'press table' is outside of the Bellagio, overlooking the lake where the fountains are putting on a show. This is by far the nicest 'press area' in the history of tournament poker, and I could get used to this. But the show that most people are interested in is inside the doors, where 17 of the 22 tables are being played (the other five tables are in a remote area across the casino). Most of the big names are in this room however, and this truly feels like the Superbowl of Poker.
The Superbowl is played in two halves, and so is the World Poker Tour Championship, as there are two 'flights' being played for the first five rounds of this tournament. Half the field is playing today, and the other half will start tomorrow. Players who survive day one will return on Wednesday to play out the rest of the tournament. The structure of the tournament is designed to give the maximum amount of edge to the more skilled players, with six full days of poker to be played. That is a lot of poker.
Speaking of poker, through the first break, we had zero eliminations, which is indicative of the level of skill, and lack of gambling in the early levels. The one player who stood out through the first break was Michael 'Grinder' Mizrachi, who had accumulated 70,000 chips in the first 90 minutes of play. Also big early were Joe Awada, Josh Arieh, Lyle Berman, and Greg Raymer.
Action was really slow, as the starting chips were so large relative to the blinds that people had all day to play. One notable late entry was Mr. Late entry himself, Phil Hellmuth who likes to show up a bit late to big events...the bigger the event, the later the entry. This is the WPT Championship, so Phil sauntered in at the beginning of level three.
It took four hours before I saw a 'name' player all in, which was Carlos Mortensen. Carlos took A9 of clubs against AK, and survived with a third club on the river to double up.
Early eliminations today were Layne Flack, Hoyt Corkins, and Freddy Deeb. Deeb turned a straight, but ran into a flopped flush. The first star on star bustout happened as Andy Bloch moved in on John Juanda with a flush, and straight draw. Juanda had flopped a set, and needed to dodge 13 cards to double up. The river was a Queen, however giving Bloch Broadway, and putting Juanda out on Las Vegas Blvd.
The bad beat of the day award goes to John Shipley. John took his Kings against Lee Watkinson's Jacks...You know the rest, and Shipley was out of chips.
This was not a day marked by action, though as by even at the end of level 4, the average stack still had over 144 times the size of the big blind...plenty of room for a little play.
The prize structure for this event is as flat as any I can remember. One in FOUR AND A HALF players cashes in this event. 100 of the 452 starting players will get paid. The payouts are:
1st place - $2,856,150
2nd - $1,698,390
3rd - $896,375
4th - $518,920
5th - $377,420
6th - $264,195
7th - $188,710
8th - $150,970
9th - $132,095
10th- $113,225
11th thru 15th - $94,355
16th thru 20th - $75,485
21st thru 30th - $56,615
31st thru 40th - $47,180
41st thru 50th - $37,740
51st thru 100th (!!!) - $30,000
At the end of level five, we are done for the day. We have 178 players left, and some notables that have left us are Martin deKnijff , Chip Jett, Dan Harrington, and Chip Reese. Here are some selected (and rough) chip counts. Flight 'B' of day one begins tomorrow. See you then.
Scotty Nguyen 233,750
Eric 'E-Dub' Weiner 230,000
Robert Alexander 180,000
Greg Raymer 150,000
Alan Goehring 150,000
Josh Arieh 140,000
Thunder Keller 130,000
Ron Rose 129,000
Dan Alspach 120,000
Russell Rosenblum 120,000
Andy Bloch 116,625
Barry Greenstein 115,000
'Grinder' Mizrachi 100,000
Isabelle Mercier 93,000
Steven Brecher 85,000
Erik Seidel 85,000
Eskimo Clark 83,325
Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson 75,000
Annie Duke 71,000
Robert Mizrachi 70,000
Huck Seed 65,000
David Chiu 65,825
T. J. Cloutier 65,000
Steve Z 65,000
Phil Hellmuth 58,650
Phil Ivey 55,000
Lee Watkinson 55,000
Lyle Berman 55,000
Chris Bigler 52,775
Kathy Leibert 50,000
Doyle 50,000
John D'Agostino 50,000
Joe Awada 50,000
Mel Judah 48,000
Joe Cassidy 40,000
Harry Demetriou 38,000
Todd Brunson 35,000
Surinder Sunar 33,675
Dewey Tomko 30,000
Paul Wolfe 25,000
Kenna James 25,000
Howard Lederer 23,175
Carlos Mortensen 17,000
Gus Hansen 11,000
Please visit our online poker room directory to see the best bonuses on the web!
