Day 1C Roundup
More big names started their tournament yesterday, not nearly so many finished. Jennifer Harman was out very early, crippled right at the start and never recovering. Mike Matusow, Steve Zolotow, Sam Farha, Phil Gordon and T.J. Cloutier amongst those falling. More? Hasan Habib, Liz Lieu, Jennifer Tilly, Jim Meehan, Antonio Esfandiari, Tuan Le, Jeff Shulman, John Esposito, John Phan, Bobby Baldwin, Steve Dannenmann…. phew, there are more, and that’s not starting on the Europeans.
Joe got off to a great start, making 7s full against an opponent with the nut flush, although the man with the flush was cautious enough not to lose his entire stack. Sat at the table behind him, Theo Jorgensen managed to get not much more than 1000 chips off his adversary having made his set of aces on a A, K, rag flop when his opponent held A,K! Theo wasn’t best pleased when he found out what his opponent had held. He didn’t make it through.
Simon Trumper, who wasn’t listed amongst the starting players for some reason, never really got going and is out. Harry Demetriou and Ben Grundy are out too, together with Bruno Fitoussi and Jean-Robert Bellande. Bellande was eliminated by William Thorson, who will return with 96,225. Ben had started well at the featured TV table and was up in the mid twenties for much of the day. Another who had a disappointing end to the day was Neil Channing. Neil was slowly building up and into the twenties too but finished on 11,125. Another of our friends at the Mob, Sarah Bilney, was unable to build up her chips but ended better than most of the runners, at least able to bring back 6,100 to day 2B.
Joe built his stack up into the 30,000s as play continued, aided by quads and a royal flush in diamonds, using both of his hole cards too! He still needed to ‘find a hand’ however, to get the chips which were on offer at a good table, perhaps he was looking for a fouled deck to pick up 5 of a kind. Maybe he did find another great hand, but, like the poor sod who had his quads beaten by a straight flush to be eliminated only a few minutes after sitting down, found another player with a better one. I haven’t had a chance to catch up with him yet but he was busted in the last couple of hours of play. You’re jealous of your friends who are playing whilst you can only watch, but when they bust, gutted though you are, you know it’s only a fraction of what they’re feeling, and rather glad you weren’t in a position for it to happen to you in the first place. Of course there will be just 1 player of the 9000 or so who won’t be experiencing it eventually over the next 2 weeks.
With Barny, Ross and Ram playing today, I’m hoping they can emulate Richard Gryko’s performance. He finished with 128,575. I’m also interested to see if Ram can repeat his feat of last year – getting himself all-in in the first level with a pair of twos (7 kicker). They were sooted. They held up.
