Five-Year Record Turns Out for Stud Hi-Lo; Madsen Leads After Day 1
Either stud hi-lo is aging like a fine wine and picking up in popularity, or there was a dearth of attractive poker events around Las Vegas on Tuesday.
A total of 595 players turned up for Event #40: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, a five-year high by a considerable amount for the age-old event. That's an increase of 74 players from 2016, and almost 40 better than the 558 who turned out in 2013 and 2014.
When the dust settled, about 140 players had made it through 10 levels of play to put chips in bags. Foremost among them was Jeff Madsen, with a final count of 79,900. Jeff Mitseff (78,100), Cole Jackson (76,800), Chris Ferguson (70,800), and Ryan Hughes (69,100) also bagged big stacks.
Madsen, the 2006 WSOP Player of the Year, already has four bracelets and is looking to add to that tally. About midway through the day, he played a sizable pot with Cal Anderson and made a very strong two-way hand with an ace-high club flush and a wheel for low that scooped the pot. He was one of the more active players at his table and seemed to have a fairly steady stack of over 60,000 for most of the latter part of the night.
Some other players who made it through included Randy Ohel, "Miami" John Cernuto, Adam Friedman, Joe Hachem, Mike Watson, Justin Bonomo, and last year's runner-up, Brandon Shack-Harris. John Monnette, James Obst, Scott Clements, Stephen Chidwick, David Bach, Anderson and James Woods were some of those who headed for the exits and planned their next tournament efforts.
Obst was coming off of bubbling the official final table in the $5,000 Six-Max.
Also on Day 1, the WSOP staff posted a prize pool for the event. The winner will bank $173,228 and a gold WSOP bracelet, and 90 places will be paid overall, so the money should be reached a few levels into Day 2.
To find out who those players who make the money will be, come back to PokerNews at 2 p.m. Wednesday for Day 2 coverage of this event. A full Day 2 seat draw can be found at WSOP.com.