WSOP -- Day 1B of the Main EventFourth of July Sees Many Former Main Event Champions Start Their Tournament |
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While most people spent the day barbecuing in their backyard to celebrate the Fourth of July, there were still 873 people that wanted to spend America’s birthday in the Rio’s Amazon Room, as day 1b of the World Series of Poker main event kicked off.
The 873 players is a considerable drop from the 1,158 players that participated in day 1b in 2008, as well as the 1,116 players that opted to play day 1a, but Independence Day probably played a big role in the decline of players.
Regardless of numbers or holidays, there were still a fair amount of top-notch professionals, including several former main event champions who decided to get their main event started.
Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Carlos Mortensen, Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Jim Bechtel, and Amarillo Slim were all hoping to survive the day and keep their hopes alive for another main event bracelet.
Unfortunately for Brunson and Moneymaker, their days ended early. Moneymaker got short quick and ran his pocket tens into pocket aces, allowing the 2003 champion to attend whatever barbeque and fireworks show he can find. Brunson also got on the wrong end of a cold deck as his set of threes ran into a turned straight, to eliminate him in the third level of the day.
Even though Doyle busted, there are still two Brunson’s left in the field as his son Todd and daughter Pamela have both made it through the day. Todd has one bracelet to his name already, and is looking to make 2009 the year where he makes his first main event final table.
Other past bracelet winners that started play today included Jason Young, Mike Matusow, Erik Seidel, Alex Kravchenko, David Pham, Bill Edler, Thor Hansen, Burt Boutin, Hoyt Corkins and Barry Greenstein. Outside of Pham, all of the aforementioned players have survived the day and continue their hopes of main event glory.
Pham was short early in the third level and took an awful beat as he got his last 5500 into the pot preflop with pocket aces against the ace-king of his opponent. After another player at the table said he folded a king, one fell on the flop, and the case king fell on the turn, ending Pham’s World Series.
Other notables that played today were Ralph Perry, Fabrice Soulier, Mike Caro, Dustin Woolf, Barny Boatman, Bruno Fitoussi, Joe Sebok, Shaun Deeb and Juha Helppi.
Ralph Perry couldn’t hold on to his chips long enough to make the day’s end, and neither could Dustin Woolf. Woolf got all of his chips in the middle preflop with A
K
and was called by the A
K
. The board ran out with four diamonds, giving Woolf’s opponent the nut flush and giving Woolf a bad beat that he won’t soon forget.
Notable professional players weren’t the only ones that were hitting the rail as Card Player’s own Stephen A. Murphy tried his luck today, only to come up short, as he busted a few hours after the dinner break.
Amidst the bust outs and bad beats, 684 players waded through the field to finish the day and move on. These players will come back on July 7th and combine with the players who survived day 1a, to make up day 2a.
The unofficial chip leader at the end of the day is Brandon Demes, who has 140,000 in chips. Fabrice Soulier and Joe Sebok are also near the top of the unofficial chip counts as they have 98,000 and 75,000 respectively. Official chip counts will be released later, after all of the chips are bagged and tagged.
Stay tuned to Card Player on Sunday as we will have complete coverage of day 1c, beginning at noon.
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