Day 1 Ends Six Eliminations Off of the Bubble
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Ten levels of play are in the books here in Event 28: $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em – Four-Handed, and six of the remaining 86 players will return to Day 2 only to leave empty-handed. Steven Weiss (171,000) and Brian Rast (168,000) most likely won’t bust before the money bubble bursts – they’re our chip leaders.
Event 28 was one of the most anticipated events of the summer, because there has never been a four-max tournament in the history of the World Series of Poker. There were 750 entrants looking to make history as the first four-max bracelet winner ever, and the chips were flying almost immediately. During the first six levels of play, we lost more than two thirds of the field, including Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier, Marvin Rettenmaier, Daniel Negreanu, David Vamplew, Aaron Jones, and the 2009 Main Event Champion Joe Cada.
The play began to settle after dinner break, and Rast, one of our leaders, won an epic pot off of Byron Kaverman during Level 9. The 2011 Poker Player's Champion made queens full of tens on the river against Kaverman’s sevens full of queens, and check-raised all in. Rather than snap it off for his whole stack – which we saw a lot of today – Kaverman tanked for over five minutes. He couldn’t get away from it however, and called, eliminating him from the tournament. Shankar Pillai (150,000) rocketed up to the top of the charts early on in the day, and never looked back. Even when Jake Cody was moved to his direct left, and he took a nice-sized pot off of Pillai, the 2007 bracelet winner never dipped below 100,000 during the latter levels.
There are plenty of other notables who will return tomorrow, including Sam Stein (154,200), Tony Dunst (162,800), Darryll Fish (125,700), Joe Tehan (96,600), Lex Veldhuis (102,200), Isaac Haxton (49,500), and Jason Koon (139,000).
With 86 players remaining, we are just six eliminations away from bursting a $4,385 money bubble. Play will resume tomorrow at 1 p.m. in the Orange Section of the Amazon Room, but for now, good night from Las Vegas!