Day 36 at the 38th
World Series of Poker saw dozens of Europeans take to the felt among the 1,289 -trong field in the largest and most prestigious tournament of the year, the $10,000 world championship no-limit hold'em main event.
Players included Marcel Luske, Andy Black, Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott, Dave Colclough, Thomas Wahlroos, Mickey Wernick, Michael Greco, Julian Gardner, Marty Smyth, Per Hildebrand, Iwan Jones, Peter Dahlhuijsen, Joe Beevers, Teddy Sheringham, Des Wilson, Bertrand 'ElkY' Grosspellier, John Magill, Lars Bonding, Jani Sointula, Ian Woodley, Henning Granstad, Marco Traniello, Fabrice Soulier, Peter Gould, Jan Boubli, and Ram Vaswani.
Young U.S. player Luke Staudenmaier had the ignominious honour of being the first person knocked out after just three hands.
He got his chips in the middle with A-A and was up against A-K, but came a cropper to a flopped flush. 'I was an 80 percent favourite, so i'm not upset,' he said afterwards. 'Do i get a prize?' he asked before sauntering out of the Amazon Room.
The first notable European to hit the rail was recent bracelet winner Ram Vaswani, seated at a table with Andy Black and
World Poker Tour presenter Vince Van Patten. Former professional footballer Tony Cascarino didn't make it to the dinner break, nor did Roy Brindley.
Brindley had a torrid time. 'I arrived half an hour late,' he told
CardPlayer.com. 'Within three minutes i've knocked myself down an 3,000 chips in the first hand i played.' He never truly recovered and busted out when he got his remaining chips in with 2-2 pre-flop and was called by A-K that hit.
Dave Colclough was another pre-dinner casualty. On a flop of A-J-8, he got all of his money in the pot with A-J against his opponent's A-10. Cruelly, the turn and river brought a 9 and a 7, giving his opponent a backdoor straight and sending the luckless Colclough packing.
Others who didn't last included Iwan Jones, Marcel Luske, Teddy Sheringham, Thomas Wahlroos, Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott, Marco Traniello, Jani Sointula, and Andy Black.
Black had been among the chip leaders for a large part of the day.
Up with the chips leaders in the 400-plus survivors returning next week for day 2 is 2002 main event runner-up Julian Gardner, while Hendon Mobster Joe Beevers looked comfortable.
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European news, live updates, and pro blogs from day 1B at the
WSOP.
