Team Jaffee, Team Gerrits, Team Wang All Bag Big on Day 1 of Event #57: $1,000 Tag Team NLHE
After ten levels of 60 minutes each, Day 1 of Event #57: $1,000 Tag Team No-Limit Hold’em here at the 50th Annual World Series of Poker has run its course. There were 976 teams who decided to enter one of the most fun tournaments in Las Vegas during the summer. With all the teams constantly supported by their teammates and friends, 278 teams have made it through to Day 2 here in the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino which starts at 1 p.m. local time on Tuesday, June 25.
Some of the top stacks belong to teams with some very familiar players in them. Team Jaffee has Jared Jaffee, Ralph Massey, and Aaron Massey in it. They bagged 255,000 at the end of the day. Some of those chips were won when the younger Massey brother eliminated Anthony Reategui with pocket tens. Some more chips were won when Jaffee found ace-king and called his opponent’s shove who held king-ten suited.
Team Gerrits laid claim to 236,100 in chips for Day 2. Martijn Gerrits eliminated two other teams early on the day, Preston Lee and Kane Kalas kept building their stack up throughout the rest of the day. Team Wang contains the same players as last year when they finished in 46th place for $990 each. Michael Wang, Dan Zack, and Ajay Chabra will be tagging each other in and out to try and better their previous results. Zack will be trying to win his second bracelet of the summer after winning Event #6: $2,500 Limit Mixed Triple Draw at the beginning of the month.
Ryan Riess and Phil Hui had a great start of the day but Team Riess lost some chips at the end of the day to finish with 93,200 which is still an above average stack. Team Ramos with Felipe Ramos and Natalie Hof put 64,700 into their bags. Ramos and Hof are expecting their first child and will also be looking to win their first bracelet together.
Last year’s champions Nikita Luther and Guiseppe Pantaleo split their efforts to defend the title. Luther teamed up with Aditya Sushant (who won this event in 2017 with Nipun Java) to try and win another bracelet for India. Pantaleo got together with Paul Hoefer but both teams failed to make it through. Doug Polk won the first ever edition with Ryan Fee and was back on the felt today with his girlfriend, Cathy Karges, Bryce Daifuku, and Chris Digirolamo.
The 278 returning teams will continue to play at 1 p.m on Tuesday. for another 10 levels to try to make it into the money as 147 of them will cash for at least $1,498. Once that goal has been reached, they will all be aiming for Day 3. Day 1 didn’t have any breaks but Day 2 will have two of them. After Level 14 there will be a break to remove the 100-value chips out of play and after Level 19 the 500-value chips will be colored up.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing you all the action until the final team wins and takes away $168,395 to share among themselves with their brand-new bracelets in hand too. So make sure to follow the updates to see who will be taking the tag team tournament down.
