I believe that TJ is notorious for never having any money. So it’s possible he took so long to register (or attempt to anyways) because he was simply scrounging around for the 10K.
A couple of reasons why Cloutier (and others) might not have thought pre-registration was necessary: (1) This is the first time that a starting day of the Main Event has ever sold out, and registering the morning of the event is utterly common practice among even seasoned tournament pros, many of whom don’t decide which starting day they want to play until the tournament is underway; (2) Harrah’s had advertised a 3,000 player cap for each starting day, but arbitrarily decided on Monday morning to declare Day 1D sold out at 2,700 players; and (3) since Harrah’s doesn’t take credit/debit cards, the fact that Days 1B and 1C fell on the weekend meant that anyone who didn’t play Day 1A wouldn’t be able to get to the bank to withdraw money until the morning of Day 1D. I think that latter factor was huge, personally.
Obviously any given player who was shut out could (and should) have chosen to register for Day 1D earlier, but that would just have meant that some other prospective registree would have been turned away on Monday morning. All this when Days 1A, 1B, and 1C were at nowhere near capacity.
The logistics of Fourth of July weekend made it unfortunate timing, but (even assuming they couldn’t have had the foresight to temporarily close registration for Day 1D for awhile in late June to force people to register in greater numbers on the other days, as they did last year), Harrah’s didn’t handle it nearly as well as they could have. It was suggested to have a Day 1E tranch of 300 people play four levels starting at 4 pm on Monday, to be integrated into the Day 2A crowd the next day, but Harrah’s nixed the idea because they said that more people than the anticipated 300 might show up (so they chose to piss off x people instead of x minus 300 people, I guess).
Great to see so many big names still alive, and spread across the chip leaderboard, at the completion of Day 2. Anecdotally, I would say this is the strongest end-of-day-2 showing of the big names in a WSOP Main Event in recent years. Ivey, Hellmuth, Tran (both Kenny and JC), Harrington, Benyamine, Esfandiari, Ferguson are not only still alive, but have healthy chip stacks (just to name a few). “New blood” such as Bonomo, Hac Dang and Kostritsyn are doing just as well. Even recent main event winners Hachem and Raymer have decent stacks. Let’s hope we see plenty of big name players run deep enough to have shots at making the final table.
I’m pretty confident a pro or two will be at the final table. It seems to be consistent that at least on pro does so, but is outnumbered by n00bs probably in a ratio that is consistent with pre-final table numbers. 1:10 or so.
Examples: Kenny Tran and Scotty Nguyen (almost) last year, right? Allen Cunningham and possibly someone that I’m forgetting the year of Jamie Gold. Dan Harrington and Sam Farha during the Moneymaker final table. Harrington again the next year. Mike Matusow has been to a final table or two in the last few years also.
So yeah, I’m confident a pro or two will make this year’s final table. It better be Ivey damn it!
For what it’s worth, Gabe Walls, the guy third in chips for Day 2B is an ex-professional Magic: the Gathering player.
If we’re going to mention former MtG players, David Williams is still pretty active on the pro scene. One of this year’s double-bracelet winners is also an ex-pro. As is E-fro. Might be some others, but these are the ones that have made a bigger name for themselves in poker than the others.
Building on my last post, Lee Watkinson made a final table (last year?). I like his style, quiet and a good person, so I didn’t want to leave him out as a pro to make a recent final table.
EDIT: Brock Parker is the double bracelet winner this year that was a Magic professional. Though he might actually only have been a semi-pro on the Magic scene. Either way, he used to play Magic.
Nope. Pretty sure Matusow hasn’t been there in a bit either, although I guess it depends on how you define “the last few years.”
David Williams is, by all accounts, a douche. 
Also, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Lee Watkinson’s pimp billboard. I’m on my Blackberry, or else I’d link to it.
“Last few years” refers to the Post-Varkonyi period of the WSOP.
Oh, and I got Kenny Tran confused with Chino Rheem, sorry.
Define douche. I’ve met him in person and if something annoys him, he’ll let you know. That’s not douchebaggy though is it?
Example: This interestingly involves Gabe Walls too. David was at a large Magic tournament in Los Angeles earlier in the year, I was also. It was Sunday and neither him nor Walls were in the tournament anymore. David was asked by some random guys to play some casual games with them, he obliged. Gabe was sitting next to the random guy David was playing against.
All the while, Gabe was running his fat loud mouth at David’s expense. Eventually David piped up and said “Gabe, do you ever shut the fuck up?” Gabe was silent until David and the random guy stopped playing.
So going by that story, Gabe Walls is the douche. 
The difference between Kenny Tran and Chino Rheem is that Tran is actually good at poker (as in, “one of the better players in the world,” not just “better than most people who don’t do it for a living”). Also, Tran doesn’t have a criminal record.
As for David Williams, I’d have thought that gigantic diamond-encrusted ace of spades or any of his other ridiculous pieces of bling spoke for themselves, but if not, you should google “I’m David Williams, who the fuck are you?” for an amusing if unflattering anecdote. Googling “toesucker” and “David Williams,” on the other hand, would just be cruel.
Explain.
Okay you win, he’s a douche. Maybe all that shit is why he’s gotten back into Magic slightly. No one knows anything more about him than “he’s had some success in poker.”
I’m not sure how to explain. Rheem’s skills generally aren’t held in very high esteem. I mean, Chino is no Jerry Yang, but Tran is legitimately excellent.
Shaun Deeb is punk’d in to believing he’s been suspended from the WSOP Main Event.
Is this it?
And people are calling David Williams a douche? Regarding Lee’s billboard. Or is it supposed to be humorously ironic because Lee is, AFAIK, a quiet down to earth guy?
This still.
Also, Phil Ivey over the last two days was a chip leader, then fell to an above average stack and has clawed his way 11th in chips at the end of Day 4.
There are still 400ish players left, so I guess no one person can reserve a seat in the final table just yet, but we all know who my money is still on.
What about you guys? Ludovic and ELKY have been dominating the chip leads for the past two day, do you think the breaks in between days is to their benefit or detriment?
Benefit in that they can rest up and turn on their game again or to the detriment in that other people get to turn their game up to 11 and because maybe they can’t keep up their A game for this much longer.
Would love to see Ivey win it.
Actually, I’d like to see ANY big name poker pro win it. But of all the big names left in the field, I want to see Ivey win it the most. Wouldn’t mind seeing Hac Dang or Dan Harrington win it though. Seeing Eastgate win it again would be good for kicks. Or seeing one of the “celebrities” win it would also be interesting.
Just did a quick reference check, it appears as though only 4 previous Main Event winners are still alive in the field:
Bobby Baldwin (1978)
Dan Harrington (1995)
Joe Hachem (2005)
Peter Eastgate (2008)
Seeing Baldwin win it again would be pretty awesome. I’m not sure many people even would know he’s a former ME champ if he sits at their table.
And of course, Baldwin busts shortly after I mention him. :smack:
Peter Eastgate is the only previous Main Event winner left in the field.
It seems as though at the end of day five, 185 players remain from the 6494 that started on day 1.
Phil Ivey slightly increased his chip stack today to about 1.4 million, but slipped in overall position - to about 45th. The chip leader has surpassed the 5 million chip mark, but preliminary figures suggest that only about 16 players have gone past 2 million.