Jordan Morgan is near the top of the leaderboard with just over 400 players remaining. And is Phil Ivey a piece of work or what? His name is now near the top of the chip counts. I don’t know what the odds are of him winning it, but I bet he knows.
I have a great deal of respect for Jeffrey Pollack and I made him earn it. When Harrah’s hired him in the fall of 2005 to be Commissioner of the World Series of Poker, he was taking over (in slow motion) for Gary Thompson, who had convinced Harrah’s to buy Binion’s Horseshoe in April 2004 for the purpose of acquiring the World Series.
The Main Event started more than a week ago and it took four days to play the initial session. Now, as they approach the money, the remaining players fit comfortably in a portion of the Amazon Room. Out of 6,494 starters and three sessions apiece, 789 players remaining, of which 648 will be paid. This is who’s left:
Everything is about to change. The World Series is no longer a melange of noon events, 5 PM events, Day 2s, final tables, and satellites. Nor is there the crazy crackle of energy at the start of the Main Event, where even the most hopeless punter can dream. Tomorrow, Friday, the Amazon Room will fill for the last time, as the final 2,044 players all assemble in one place – okay, two places early in the day.
[This is a resumption of my accounts of the strange things I observed - and sometimes did - on June 22, the day that started with the Senior Championship at noon and didn't end until I finished Day 1 of the Razz at 3 AM on the 23rd.]
I busted out of the Senior Championship at 4:35 PM. I was torn between taking another shot at a single-table satellite, entering the $2,500 Razz, and making a dinner appointment with my author friends Tony Holden and Des Wilson. Based on how I’ve been playing, it normally would have been an easy call to blow off poker and have dinner with friends, except Des insisted on dinner at Buzios. As I told Des, and as I have told you several times – and as I have told Des that I have told you several times – Buzios is my least favorite restaurant in Las Vegas if not the entire world.
Full Tilt has been offering, as far back at least as 2006, $10 million to any player on the site who wins an entry to the Main Event and then wins the World Championship. I’ve had people tell me, “Oh, that’s an illusion. They pay you out over, like, ten years.” I don’t care if they pay me out over ten MILLION years. That’s a lot of fuckin’ money.
Last winter, European poker pro Markus Golser brought Johannes Strassmann, an up-and-coming European tournament star, skiing in Austria. Golser, an excellent skier, took off down an expert slope. He didn’t know it, but Strassmann, who had never skied before, followed behind. Part way down the run, Markus noticed in his peripheral vision someone falling down the mountain. He stopped, to see Johannes land in a heap nearby.
We’ve played three of the four initial sessions of the Main Event and today’s last session could sell out. I’ve compiled some 1-A and 1-B lists, and will likely provide the same for 1-C and 1-D either after play today or, because I’m playing 2-A tomorrow, before 2-B on Wednesday.
Experienced poker players will tell you that no one really wants to be the chip leader after the first day of the Main Event. Day 1 position has little relevance to the final results and just creates a lot of extra attention and pressure. Imagine how Eric Cloutier feels right now.
[This was written as I played the Senior Championship on June 22.]
Today, Monday, June 22, is Senior Day at the WSOP. The noon event is the $1,000 Senior NLHE World Championship. And then, as some kind of sick joke, Harrah’s scheduled the $2,500 Razz event for 5 PM. That means there are a lot of people in the Convention Center referring to Mickey Appleman as “that hippy kid.” Of all the stereotypical jokes I’ve heard about today, the best by far was by Aaron Bartley. When I told Aaron several weeks ago that I had planned on playing the event for the first time, he asked, “Is that the day they have the dinner break at 5 PM?”
