Some of the players that failed to make it through the day were Mike Matusow, Jennifer Tilley, Phil Laak, Gus Hansen, Eli Elezra, Todd Brunson, Gavin Smith, Amarillo Slim and Tony G.  While they will be watching from the side lines, Chris Ferguson, Andy Black, Greg Mueller, Mike Sexton and Thor Hansen have all managed to get through to the next session.

Day 2b should be interesting as the field for this session will be much larger.  A lot of players chose to play in the 2 late Day 1’s and we will see about 3,500 players start the day off before they combine fields to move forward.  It was also interesting that a lot of the professionals chose to start off on the later days as they knew they would also be packed with a lot of the amateurs that were getting satellite tickets into the Main Event.

We have talked many times about how difficult it is for the pros to navigate through large fields because of the fact that everyone wants to be the person that can say, “I took out (fill in name of pro here).”  Not only that, but by playing in one of the first two sessions, you would get a significant more amount of rest in compared to the later days when the fields get combined.  Make no mistake about it, these players will wear down with the grind that they are faced with.

We are a long way from the bubble as the top 648 players get paid.  You can expect that stage not be reached until Friday at the earliest.  When that time approached, play will come to grinding halt as everyone can smell the money and do not want to be the person that goes out on the bubble in the largest stage that poker sees every year.

Strap in and get ready for another long session of poker on Wednesday.  They will hopefully get this field down to under 1,000 players, leaving less than 2,000 overall to go into Day 3.  That is when the real fun begins as we will have all of the players in the same room for the first time since the tournament has started.

In other tournaments…

While it has already been mentioned in a previous post, Jeff Lisandro winning a third bracelet in a single WSOP warrants a quick review. The last time that someone won 3 bracelets in a single season was when Ivey did it in 2002. However, the fact that he has done it in all three versions of 7 Card Stud is simply incredible. He has been playing incredible and is now one of the favorites for player of the year.

Event 45 is down to the final 14 and should be an early finisher on Thursday. This is a tournament that has moved along nicely during each session and with the chip leader having about 30% of the chips in play, the rest of the field is going to have a very tough time of it when they get into pots with him. Expect fast and furious action when this one resumes on Friday.

Event 46, the Omaha Hi/Low Split Event, has made it down to the final 23 and they will play to a winner on Friday. This one has seen some radical changes on the leader board for the entire tournament and it would be no surprise to see that trend continue. Mark Tenner is current chip leader with 285,000 in his stack.

The Mixed Hold’em Event got underway on Wednesday and had a star studded field. Barry Greenstein has taken the chip lead with 177,200 in chips, but the every annoying Hasan Habib is a close second with 165,000. If you don’t remember Habib, he is the one that did this little monkey dance around the tables a few years back every time he eliminated a player. A new rule has been invoked just because of his antics that does not allow a player to leave their seat to celebrate a victory in a hand. Eli Elezra is also high up on the leader board as well as Daniel Negreanu.

The final hand of the tournament was during at Omaha-8 game. Chui was holding A5910 to Wahlbeck’s AQ88. He made a pre-flop all in move and Wahlbeck made the call. Both players missed the flop of JJ5, but the turn but Chui ahead with a 10d. However, Walhbeck picked up additional outs as he could now hit a straight in addition to his Q. Of course, the river hits continued to pop and a K showed up to give Wahlbeck both the straight and a World Championship.

Event 11 finally came to a close with Anthony Harb becoming yet another first time bracelet winner. In a tournament that seemed destined for a big name player to take down, Harb put away the likes of TJ Cloutier, Tom McEvoy and Phil Hellmuth. For his efforts, he not only gets the bracelet, but an influx of $569,199 to his bank account.

The final hand of the tournament ended when Rho flopped tow pair, but waited for the turn to make his move. If he would have gone all in off the flop of 98K, we will never know, but the J that hit on the turn sealed his fate. He pushed and Harb made the instacall with a Q10 sitting in his hand. The river was a blank (for once) and Harb won the bracelet. As the tournament director tried to affix the jewelry, Harb gave the classic quote, “Look how fat my wrist it.” Well it just gained a little more in circumference with a great new bracelet.

In other tournaments…

Phil Ivey was making a legitimate attempt at his second bracelet in Event 13, but just as the break was coming he managed to get the worst of it in a huge hand and will be the short stack as play resumes. They are down to 20 players from the original 1088 person field and will play to a bracelet on Sunday. Greg Merkow now leads the field with 932,000 in chips.
Daniel Negreanu has once again made it to one of the top spots of the leader board in Event 14. With only 11 players left, he is by far the best at the tables. Daniel took this event down last season and it would be absolutely incredible to see him manage to do the same again here. After a miserable 2007 WSOP, Daniel bounced back with some decent success in 2008 with 5 cashes, 2 final tables and one bracelet. He has already had two cashes (including this one) in this year’s event and if he can manage to win the bracelet here, he is poised at a run of his best WSOP ever.

Events 15 and 16 both wrapped up their first days in fine fashion. Only 165 players remain from the original field of 655 in Event 15. Calixto Clemenceau leads the way with 186,300 in chips. Event 16 has also had a very good amount of eliminations as the late starting tournament of the day. Only 97 players remain from a starting field of 359. That is rather unbelievable considering the fact that this is a Seven Card Stud Event. David Levi is at the top of the leader board with 49.600 in chips, but there are still a ton of big name players left in this one including Jason Mercier (already has a bracelet this year), Dutch Boyd, Jeff Lisaandro, Thor Hansen and Eli Elezra. The pros still have a legitimate shot at taking this one down.

The winning hand was a simply 10c9d that he turned into a straight leaving Varkonyi only one out left in the deck. If the 4c didn’t show, McEvey was walking with the hardware. He got a club, but it was the K of clubs and that was all she wrote. The cash payday for this event was a mere $1,970, but the winner also received The Binion Cup and a fully restored 1970 Corvette Stingray Convertible. More importantly, McEvoy now has the right to brag about beating every past WSOP Champion that was seated at the table.

In other tournaments…

Event #4 continued on from the field of 6012 and we are not looking at the final day of the tournament. With only 50 players left, we will hopefully have a champion of The Stimulus $1,000 NL Hold’em event early in the evening. Top prize for the event is $771,106 and play will resume at 1:00pm on Tuesday.

Event 5 wrapped up its first day by eliminating an impressive 90% of the field. Only 81 players remain from the original 809. Jason Mercier appears to be the chip leader in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Event, but official counts have not yet been released.

Event 6, the $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship Event, will continue on, but still has a long way to go. 142 players started the day and there are still 101 remaining. The top 16 positions will be played and Matt Glantz is the current chip leader with 100,000 in his stack. Todd Brunson and Eli Elezra are also some of the bigger names on the Day 1 leader board.

Grey Raymer has been playing great poker for the entire tournament and although he hit a small hiccup, he is still in this tournament with 2,287, 000. A name we have not seen atop the leader boards in quite some time, Ted Forrest, is also perched to make a run at the final table. With 2,586,000, he is sitting in second place and looking strong.

They had intended on playing down to 18, but play slowed down dramatically and 23 players will sit down at the table on day 3 in an effort to get to the final table. There are a lot of short stacks which may lead to a very short session. The next few players should go out rather quickly as they begin to play short-handed tables.

Here are your chip leaders heading into day 3:
Justin Bonomo 2,678,000
Ted Forrest 2,586,000
David Baker 2,367,000
Greg Raymer 2,287,000
Lex Veldhuis 2,103,000
Alex Torelle 1,725,000
Keith Lehr 1,257,000
Vitaly Lunkin 1,166,000
Matthew Marafioti 1,003,000
The rest of the field is under 1,000,000 in chips with the bottom 6 having less than 500,000.

In other tournaments….
The first bracelet of the season was won by Andrew Cohen, winner of the $500 Casino Employees Event. He takes home a healthy $83,778 as he bested 866 other players. He also had the honor of going through the first ever bracelet ceremony.

Day 1 is over for the Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better (Event #3). This tournament saw a record breaking entry of 918 players. If it is a sign to come, this WSOP is going to have the largest prize pools that we have ever seen. The day saw a lot of action with over 700 players in the starting field finding the rail. Chip counts were not yet available as of this posting, but some big names are still hanging tough. Defending Champion Luu is still in the field and Eli Elezra finished the day very strong and is over 50,000.

In addition to Day 3 of the $40k event and Day 2 of the Omaha Hi/Low tournament, Event #4, a $1000 NL Hold’em event, kicks off today at 12 noon Vegas time. This event will actually be covered on ESPN if you are interested in seeing the live stream.

Big names that participated in today’s event included Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Scott Fischman, Andy Black, Erik Seidel, Josh Arieh, Erica Schoenberg, Steve Zolotow, Ross Boatman, Joe Beevers, Phil Hellmuth, Ted Lawson, Kathy Liebert, Vanessa Rousso, Alexander Kravchenko, Chad Brown, Eli Elezra, Freddy Deeb, Patrik Antonius, Max Pascatori, Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, and Howard Lederer.

David Benyamine was the first big name to be eliminated from this Main Event. Apparently he had tangled early on with Andy Bloch and Bloch took around 6,000 of Benyamine’s 20,000 stack before they got tangled in another huge hand. There was a lot of action preflop between the two before the flop fell 4c-4d-6d. Benyamine bet out 2,800 and Bloch raised enough to put Benyamine all-in. Benyamine went into the tank, probably sensing what was about to come. He finally called showing Kc-Ks. As he was probably guessing, Bloch flipped over Ah-Ad. Benyamine was unable to catch a king and his day was done early.

Howard Lederer was the next to exit. Chris Moorman called a raise to 1,000 from Lederer preflop and the flop fell 9-6-3. Moorman checked and Lederer bet 1,500. Moorman check-raised to 4,800 and Lederer called. When the turn fell a 7, Moorman bet enough to put Lederer all-in and Lederer called. Moorman showed pocket sixes for a set of sixes and Lederer showed pocket aces. The river was a blank, and Lederer headed for the door.

One interesting note was that the seat formerly occupied by David Benyamine was shortly replaced by Erica Schoenberg. Schoenberg is the fiancé of David Benyamine. Also apparently the crews over in Europe aren’t quite sure who Phil Hellmuth is. An intern with ESPN asked Phil Hellmuth to fill out a player profile sheet, which is kind of funny considering that there shouldn’t be a poker fan out there that doesn’t know who he is.

It took a while for the next big name to fall by the wayside, but finally Layne Flack was all in with Ah-Kc against Ac-10s. The flop fell 10c-9c-10h, leaving Flack drawing thin. He was drawing dead after the 8c fell on the turn. Mike Matusow was among the early chip leaders after knocking out Finnish rocker Voittlo Rintala. Around the mid point of the day, Matusow had 75,000 chips.

I’m not sure why Odin is pissed right now, but he must be, because Thor Hansen had a really bad beat put on him at the river. Hansen and Liebert were all in against Liya Gerasimova after a pre-flop raising war. Hansen held Jc-Jd, Liebert held Qc-Qh, Gerasimova held Kh-Kd. Hansen was far behind and fell behind further on the flop of Ad-10h-3d. It must have seemed that Odin smiled upon Hansen when the Jh hit the river, giving Hansen a set. Odin was clearly just teasing Hansen, because the fell the Ks, giving Liebert a straight, and sending Hansen home. Why Odin, why?

Barny Boatman was eliminated later in the day when he moved all in with pocket 10’s. Isaac Haxton had limped in pre-flop with pocket aces and made the call. The board missed both players and Boatman is done. Linda Lee will not be making another final table at this WSOP Europe. She was all in with pocket sixes against the pocket tens of Praz Bansi. Neither player hit the board and Lee was eliminated. Eli Elezra was one of the short stacks the entire day and had survived a few all-in’s. Finally he went all-in with 7h-8h and was called by Andy Bloch who was holding A-K. An ace hit the board, and Elezra hit the bricks.

Phil Hellmuth had been grinding for the better part of the day himself. Earlier in the day he was all the way down to 4,000 after losing to a set holding pocket aces. He had moved up a little over 10,000 and had hovered around there most of the evening. During the last level, Hellmuth was in the big blind and was raised by the small blind. Hellmuth then moved over the top all-in. The call to the small blind was 8,000. After tanking for a while, the small blind made the call. Hellmuth flipped over Ad-Kc and the small blind showed As-Qd. Hellmuth had his opponent dominated. The flop came with two kings on it to give Hellmuth a set. With the hand, he doubled up to 24,800 and remained alive for Day 2. Hellmuth was head saying, “That’s what I’ve been waiting for and I have them dominated. That’s the first time I’ve been all in today.”

Josh Arieh was among the chip leaders when he ran into a big hand against Scott Montgomery. Montgomery went all in preflop for around 40,000 chips and Arieh inexplicably made the call with Ac-Jd. Montgomery flipped over As-Kc. An ace hit both players when the flop fell 7s-5h-Ad. The turn and river fell running 8’s and Arieh was reduced to 43,000 in chips.

86 players remain out of the 159 players that started this Day 1a. Many pros were eliminated on this first day including big names such as Phil Ivey, Max Pescatori, and Patrik Antonius. Justin “BoostedJ” Smith is the Day 1a chip leader with 158,925 in chips. Andy Bloch finished third in chips and will enter Day 2 with 97,100. Many top names remain in contention for this title and Day 2 should prove interesting. Day 1b will commence at 1pm Sunday London Time.