A few moments ago, Mark Rose was all in for his tournament life holding . Neil Blumenfield made the call with , and at the sight of his cards, Rose threw his hands in the air.
The flop fell , giving Rose a gut-shot straight draw, but the turned, taking away one of his outs. Only a non-club queen could save him, and low and behold the spiked on the river to give him Broadway. He doubled to 19,500 chips, while Blumenthal fell to 37,000.
We walked into a hand just as Jason Mercier and Todd Terry were about to go to a flop. Mercier had Terry covered, who was all-in at around 18,000. Terry showed and Mercier revealed .
The board came , which held up for Mercier's queens. Terry was eliminated and Mercier added 17,000 to his stack, bringing his total count up to around 65,000.
Chris Moorman just opened his button to 1,300 and saw Simon Charette three bet from the small blind to 3,300. Tony Dunst in the big blind folded his cards and the decision was back on Moorman. He opted to call and the dealer put out a flop: . Charette bet out 3,100 and without much hesitation, Moorman decided to call. We saw the same action on the turn as the popped up. Charette bet 5,400 and, though he thought for a bit longer this time, Moorman made the call. The river paired the board with the and Charette cut out 12,700 and pushed it forwards. Moorman thought for a couple of minutes, and then sled his cards to the muck.
In one of the first hands of the day, Martin Staszko had put Derek Dempsey at risk when his were up against Dempsey's .
Staszko would need to catch a ten to eliminate Dempsey. The board ran out and with that Staszko had fallen to 29,000. He will need to pick it up if he wants to get his second cash of the series.
When we reached Table 350, the board read . Govert Metaal opted to open-shoved all in for around 20,000, which was more than what was in the pot. Mike Gorodinsky, his opponent, tanked for quite some time, then called.
Metaal revealed for a full house sevens over tens, and Gorodinsky mucked his hand.
Today the second day of this unique event will commence. Well, to be honest, it's not totally unique since the World Series of Poker Europe already had a tournament like this before Caesars Entertainment introduced it here this summer.
Yesterday the tournament format was set up like a regular No-Limit Hold'em tournament where the players were seated at nine handed tables. Today is a little bit different though, as players will be playing on six-handed tables. Less players at the tables means playing more hands, and that requires a different strategy. The tournament will know one more twist: when the tournament will be down to 32 players they change again, this time to a heads-up format.
Yesterday PokerNews' Pamela Maldonado talked to Olivier Busquet about the format. So if you're still in and need some tips, or thinking of entering next year, be sure to give that a read.
Another twist in todays tournament is that we don't know the name of the chip leader. There's a player in the tournament who build his 9,000 starting stack into a 122,375 one but he wrote down a made up name on his bag at the end of the day. A batch of familiar players are in pursuit of this anonymous player though with Isaac Hagerling (83,975), Calvin Anderson (79,425), Dominik Nitsche (72,900), John Hennigan (71,600) and Ognjen Sekularac (69,650) amongst the players who have ammassed big stacks on day one.
Today they'll play 10 levels with a sixty minute dinner break after the sixth level. Yesterday there were eight levels scheduled so the first level starting today will be level nine (300/600 with 75 ante). There are 181 players left in the tournament and, as said, they'll halt the tournament when they're down to 32 to change the format again.
Be ready; from 2 p.m. there will be more than enough action for you to read up on.