After seeing the tweet of Scott Davies, we checked the tournament area to find him and the American actually only had 600 chips left, sitting next to fellow short stack Everett Carlton. "What happened?" we asked him. "Well, it was a three-bet pot preflop and I got it in with against pocket tens on a flop."
Daniel Negreanu checked the flop, and then Ryan Riess bet 200. A third player in the hand folded, and then Negreanu check-raised all in for 1,225. Riess called quickly with the for the nuts, and is hand was crushing the for Negreanu.
The turn was the , and the river was the , sending Negreanu to the rail and giving Riess the pot.
When we've seen Everett Carlton in the past, it's been primarily at small World Series of Poker Circuits stops. That's why is was a bit surprising to see him in the "Land Down Under" for the WSOP APAC. When asked what inspired him to make the long trip from Minnesota, Carlton laughed and explained that he needed some more miles on Delta to make platinum, and there was no better way to do it than to travel to Australia to play a little poker.
Unfortunately for Carlton, things didn't go his way here on Day 1b. He was crippled by Jonathan Duhamel, and a short time later he shoved his last 400 all in preflop holding only to run into an opponent holding . Carlton failed to get lucky, and he made an early exit from Event #1. Whether or not he'll try again later tonight in the Day 1c flight remains to be seen.
It's been a heck of a year for Mike Leah, who thus far has amassed $1,588,069 in tournament winnings in 2014. All of that came in North America, but now Leah is looking for some Australian cashes.
In a recent hand, there was around 1,200 in the pot and a board reading when an under-the-gun player checked and Leah bet 525. His opponent thought long and hard before making the call, but mucked just as soon as Leah tabled the for two pair.
We didn't even notice that Mohsin Charania was in the field today until just recently, and he confirmed that he entered late. Even still, he has doubled up already.
Charania check-called 250 on a flop of and did so again for 450 on the turn. A completed the board on the river, and then Charania check-called 1,500 with the after his flush draw on the flop improved to a runner-runner straight.
Ryan Riess has to be Brandon Shack-Harris' favorite player, at least today. That's because the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event champ has singlehandedly eliminated both Daniel Negreanu and George Danzer, the two players closest to Shack-Harris in the 2014 WSOP Player of the Year race.
Danzer was the most recent to fall, and it happened after he called a raise from Riess and the two saw a flop of . Both players checked, a hit the turn, and Riess led out for 125. Danzer raised it to 400, Riess three-bet to 2,500, and Danzer called off his remaining chips with for top pair. Unfortunately for him, he was drawing dead as Riess had made a set with . With that, Danzer, who survived Day 1a with a stack of 24,625, was eliminated from Day 1b. We expect he'll look to accumulate more chips in the Day 1c flight later this evening.
Meanwhile, Peter Aristidou has also been eliminated from the tournament.
One of the players to watch for on the starting days of international events is surely Giacomo Fundaro. The World Poker Tour champion from Italy has had plenty of deep runs and typically accumulates chips very quickly. Today seems to be no different, as he is already close to five digits.
In a recent hand, however, we saw him betting 650 from the button on a flop of only to fold to the check-raise all in by the player in the big blind. That knocked Fundaro back to 8,100, but he's still at nearly three times the staring stack.
On the same table, David Bowen is also seated and has gotten off to a decent start.
Last night Phil Hellmuth waited until Level 6 to enter the tournament. Today he's come a bit earlier and jumped into action in Level 2.
In the first hand he played, we picked up the action on a flop when a player bet 250 and Hellmuth raised to 700. The bettor called and then both players checked the turn. When the completed the board on the river, Hellmuth's opponent bet 625 and the "Poker Brat" folded.
His opponent then showed the for flopped quads.
"I thought he had nothing," Hellmuth explained of the flop. "I raised with seven high."
Back on July 14, the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event final table was set. The players in this year's "November Nine" are set to resume play on November 10, and it is a globally diverse group of young players who will be battling it out for the $10 million top prize.
Andoni Larrabe represents Spain at this year's WSOP Main Event final table, and he's also the youngest player of the bunch at 22 years old. Bunched right in the middle of the pack (fourth) with 22.5 million in chips, Larrabe brings a good online poker background to the table where he has captured two Spring Championship of Online Poker titles.
In the live poker realm, Larrabe had $341,266 coming into the final table. He then notched two more small scores in his home country during European Poker Tour Barcelona.
"I'm going to approach it as calm as I can," Larrabe told ESPN's Andrew Feldman about the final table. "There's a lot of time. I'll think about it, but the most important thing will be to go relax."