Ouch for Rast.
Nut flush busted by rivered quad threes.
This is some good poker TV - Brian Rast flopped the nut flush, tried to trap Sam Trickett by calling, only to have Trickett hit quad 3’s on the river.
I think the huge blinds and antes are encouraging play - there are few hands that are folded all around.
(It is available on ESPN3.com as well)
They’re all relaxed enough that it makes me think they already made a deal, but the businessmen who are obligated to donate their winnings sort of make it awkward, since the WSOP won’t allow/support deals and they’d not be public about it.
The deck is rigged for drama.
Wow.
Congratz to Antonio. He certainly took advantage of his good cards. I was not familiar with Sam Trickett before today.
Antonio probably moves to the top of WSoP all time money winner with this win.
I didn’t like Olivier Busquet as the guest analyst. I hope this was a failed audition. Not nearly as good as Hellmuth or Esfandiari was last year.
I read on the live updating that Hellmuth had three billionaire sponsors for the tournament. I guess most of the pros didn’t have a Million Dollars of exposure. The only guy that looked like a billboard was the Malaysian Businessman who was eliminated first.
I would be surprised if Esfandiari has more than 25% of himself.
Just saw a Tweet from Todd Brunson. He said that he considered buying a piece of Michael Mizrachi’s (the Grinder) Buy-In for the one Drop but he was asking for 22% Juice.
I guess that means if he wanted 10%, he would have had to pay $122,000.
If I ever won a satellite event into the Main Event, I would try to sell enough of my entry to pay my expenses for the tournanment. I figure Three Grand ought to be enough to cover Plane tickets for Two, Car Rental, Hotel rooms, Food etc.
I understand. That’s why I used two sentences.
- Dealer should have been more in control.
- Clock should have been called earlier. As a non-involved player at the table, I might have called the clock out of sheer bordom. Sometimes chess grandmasters tank for 20 minutes on a move. But they start with a clock that has a set total time allotment so they can use it any way they want.
Day 1a of Main Event begins right about now. Mike Matasow and Ray Romano are playing in this wave.
Shuffle Up and Deal!
No one wants to talk about the Main Event?
Hellmuth busted on Day 1a. He wasn’t supposed to play until today, but decided to play Saturday.
Negreanu played very well on Day 1b. 11th in chips.
Good news for the Main Event through two days. Entrants are up.
Through two days last year: 1882 players
Through two days this year: 3180 players
They are on pace to easily beat last years 6865 players and have a outside chance to break 2006 record of 8,773 players. looks like they will beat 2010’s 7319 players for second place.
Interesting. With no US-based online satellites driving the player count, I wonder what is.
Poker new live blogging just reported:
Have they reduced the number of Day 1 sessions to Three this year?
Yes.
Just over 1,000 players left from the starting field of 6,598.
Only three former Main Event champs remain in the hunt (Johnny Chan, Dan Harrington and Huck Seed). You can follow the progress of former champs here.
Down to the final 19 of the main event. All of the remaining players are relatively unknowns. At least I have never heard of them.
The biggest news seems to be that two women have advanced this far, although one of them is a very short stack. The other one is 10th in chips.
I think the TPTB would like to see a woman in November.
So Selbst is out? 
Gaelle Baumann was the last woman standing in 10th.
Scroll slightly upwards.
Jesse Sylvia 43,875,000.00
Andras Koroknai 29,375,000.00
Greg Merson 28,725,000.00
Russell Thomas 24,800,000.00
Steven Gee 16,860,000.00
Michael Esposito 16,260,000.00
Robert Salaburu 15,155,000.00
Jacob Balsiger 13,115,000.00
Jeremy Ausmus 9,805,000.00
Courtesy Bump
The Main Event resumes this weekend.