WSOP Day 3 & 4

• Author: Ed
• Filed under: Tournaments
• Date: Jul 15,2008

Day 3

The WSOP continues to be fiercely fought and it is still unclear what will happen, but one thing is for sure.  Many players will succumb to the contest and drop out.  Now we are into Day 3 everything just gets fiercer and fiercer, and it seems like the numbers are dropping considerably.

This is day 42 of 47 days total and today sees 1308 players enter the fold.  Remarkably, of those 1308 players, a great many were from different countries.  This is a major increase over last year – and it can prove only one thing: the popularity of online poker.

666 is the number of people who will take home prize money.  This means 642 players will not take any winnings home today and leave empty handed until next year.

But how did they perform?  Of them all Chris Moneymaker lost his form and was seen exiting after just 6 minutes of play.  For the former champion, this must be a real disappointment but for many others I’m sure it is a relief.

Today was a fierce brawl for many poker players, and the remaining field is only 474.  This is down from 6844 entrants and just goes to show how fierce this tournament is.

Day 4.

Today sees the 474 players from yesterday compete for the grand prize.  Starting nice and late to give our fierce warriors a rest after yesterday’s very gruelling and tiring day, today seems set to be a little bit easier in terms of number of players, but far more intense because we are now getting down to the final few.  Prize money is in and anyone that goes home at this stage will be leaving with at least $21,000 dollars.  Which is not bad for a $10,000 buy-in?

However, we know one lucky person will collect over $9 million in prize money.  The question is: who will it be?

Today’s most popular players are the infamous Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan.  After maybe two hours into the game, the former champion succumbed to a bad beat.  This will be his fifth "cash-in" at the main event, and his first finish in which he didn’t reach the final table. 

40% of the field survived, and 189 players will continue to tomorrow.

Today’s leader is Jeremy Joseph – 23 years old and currently holding over 2.1 million chips
Second and third place are held by Nikolay Losev and Cristian Draogmir respectively.

WSOP Round-up Day 2

• Author: Ed
• Filed under: Tournaments
• Date: Jul 13,2008

Just like Day 1 has been split into various ‘sub-days’ to help make it easier for all of the 6844 entrants of this grandiose competition, so has day 2.  Today we’re going to cover the whole two days in "one".  Because, with this year being the largest in history, there is a lot to tell!

The total number of players in Day2A was a staggering 1251.  Of that number after approximately 10 hours of play – we had 465 very battered, bruised but victorious individuals.  Today saw witness to a large number of professional players taking the fall and amongst those included Scotty Nguyen, Barry Greenstein and Bill Edler. 

Top 5 players for today were:

Brian Schaedlich with a staggering 8011,000  chips
Hunter Frey followed in second amassing 397,000 chips
Jeremiah Smith trails with 386,000

All in all 465 have survived to earn their day off and return after tomorrow.

Day 2B saw 2,378 players come into the fray yet again, and only 842 will manage to survive to see Day 3.  Today also saw the previous winner – Mr.Jerry Yang fall out of the contest, as well as many bracelet holders.  Top 3 players for today were:

Peter Biebel 531,000
Alex Outhred 486,800
Baja Kattamuri 411,100

As you can see no one took a significant lead compared to Day 2A.  This just goes to show how fierce the fight is, and how the 2008 WSOP will be the most competitive yet.

Stay tuned and enjoy!

Grand Entrances

• Author: Ed
• Filed under: General, Players
• Date: Jul 11,2008

In keeping with the WSOP theme we have right now, while we wait for the players to return after their hard earned break – we are going to take a look at some of the extents players will go to make sure that their identity is hidden or well known. 

Today – the two most famous examples have to be both Phil Hellmuth and Phil Laak.  The former made his grand entrance dressed in a general’s outfit with a company of very attractive young women.  One has to ask why a stunt such as this was devised.  Mr Hellmuth is neither good looking nor tremendously successful to date.

On the other hand – Phil Laak done completely the opposite – This stunt we actually quite liked however, it didn’t quite help the 35-year old who had spent over 6 hours with a professional make-up artist to get the stunt to work.  To explain it, you really have to see things.

Yes. They are the same person.  Apparently, the players at Phil’s table really did fall for it and as a result they believed they were playing with a genuine 100% real old man!

However, Phil is not the only old man playing.  Jack Ury beats his record.  This gentleman is the worlds’ oldest WSOP poker player at a staggering 95 years young!  He’s currently more successful too as the fabulous disguise of Phil Laak’s did not help him get past round 1.  Mr Ury is still battling and survives round 1 waiting for the rest in round 2.

Stay tuned for our coverage of the WSOP Day 2 very soon.