World Series Of Poker Europe Update: Day 8November Niners Clash During WSOPE Main Event Day 1 |
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The World Series of Poker Europe, presented by Betfair, has been in full swing for over a week now but the previous events have been mere appetisers to what began today; the £10,000 Main Event. After six days of play, one lucky poker player will be stepping into the designer shoes of Annette Obrestad and taking home more than £1 million. Yet, for the 159 players who took part today, the road to the final table has only just begun. A field full of famous faces and world-class players was whittled down to just 86 as Day 1A delivered it's fair share of thrills and spills.
Thrust together on the feature table were old adversaries Phil Ivey and Mike Matusow, yet their fortunes couldn't have been any more contrasting. Ivey struggled to get going all day long, consistently having to fold as he missed flop after flop. Eventually, his tournament came to an early end when he got his short-stack all in with 9
9
against Robin Keston's pocket queens. Despite claims that he “he is a nit who only folds”, Mike Matusow managed to accumulate over 70,000 chips to surge towards the top of the leader board. When asked how he got his chips, the "Mouth" said, “I was trying to fold but those idiots kept giving me their money!"
The interesting table draws continued when November Nine finalists Scott Montgomery and Craig Marquis were seated next to each other on the same table. If this was a precursor to the WSOP final table then it doesn't bode well for Marquis, who left London early. Montgomery, however, grinded his way through the day before receiving a gift from Josh Arieh in the last 10 minutes of the day. A series of raises between Montgomery and Arieh saw both players get it all-in preflop; the November Niner holding A
K, and Arieh, the surprisingly weak A J
. There was no bad beat to come and Montgomery will enter day 2 in a strong position with over 80,000 chips.
Patrik Antonius didn't appear too excited by the prospect of 10 hours at the felt as he meandered in to the Empire's card room a full six hours after the cards had been in the air. With his 20,000 starting stack whittled down to 14,000 by the time he took his seat, he too was an early casualty.
Other big names to hit the rail included Howard Lederer, Eli Elezra, Barny Boatman, Shane Warne, Ram Vaswani, and David Benyamine.
As per usual, a certain Phil Hellmuth made sure that he was the centre of attention all day long. The 'Poker Brat' suffered a crippling blow in the early stages when his K-K was crushed by a set of nines on a nine-high flop. However, Hellmuth is one tough cookie and after lingering with a short stack for hours on end, he finally got his reward in the last hour of the day, doubling through to 24,800 with A K against his opponent's dominated A Q.
Topping the leaderboard at the end of the day was Justin 'BoostedJ' Smith, with a whopping 158,925. Other frontrunners include Andy Bloch (97,100), Erik Sagstrom (98,750) and November Nine finalist Ivan Demidov with 73,625.
Plenty more familiar faces will be out in force today for Day 1B, so stay tuned to CardPlayer.com for all the latest on the WSOPE, direct from London.
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