Zimba WSOP Blog: Day 1D Roundup and the Story of Running Hot

The totals are in for the 42nd World Series of Poker Main Event and the 58 event series at the Rio in Las Vegas. Read the days' roundup, some interesting tidbits from the day, and the fascinating story of a lucky man from Long Island playing in the Main Event.

Zimba Blog:

Just before the dinner break, the official World Series of Poker numbers were announced for both the Main Event and the entire 58 event series. Day 1D saw 2,809 players players, which helped created the third-largest WSOP Main Event field ever with 6,865 entrants. The prize pool for the Main Event reached $64,531,000. The winner will take home $8,711,956. Eighth place or better will be guaranteed over a million dollars.

For the overall WSOP series, there were a record 75,672 entries in 58 events creating the largest prize pool in WSOP history, $191,999,010. That total beat the previous record by 3.7 percent in number of entrants and 2.6 percent higher in total prizepool. Over its 42-year WSOP history, the series has now awarded more than $1.4 billion in prize money.

Former Main Event champions playing on Day 1D included reigning Champ Jonathan Duhamel, Joe Cada, Dan Harrington, Scotty Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, Bobby Baldwin, Chris Moneymaker and Tom McEvoy.

The day was unkind to a number of notable poker players who busted early in Day 1D including Tom Dwan with two pair to a flush, Prahlad Friedman, Chino Rheem, 2010 Player of the Year Frank Kassela, William Reynolds, and Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier. Later in the day Michael Binger, Antonio Esfandiari, David Williams, Shawn Sheikhan, and Jason Senti joined them on the rail. John Juanda, Alex Kravchenko and hip hop superstar Nelly also bust later in the day.

Into level 5, Maynard "Morey" Little is the clear chip leader of Day 1D with 176,000 with several players including Joe Tehan above 130k.

Tom Schneider passed along an overheard comment during the Series. A player in a cash game complaining to a dealer about how badly he deals... Dealer says to player, "If we switched seats, we would both make more money."

In the funny hat department, I spotted a massive white puffy chef's hat, a furry buffalo hat with horns, a squirrel hat, and a Santa Claus outfit with his furry red hat with white tip. One massive sumo-looking gentleman was wearing a rice paddy type Japanese hat.

The night crew of seven tournament directors/managers showed up in all white suits and pants.

Sometimes the most interesting stories don't come from a poker celebrity or someone inside the ropes. Today as I wandered the hundreds of poker tables without finding much to write about, I decided to wander outside the ropes. Yes, those protective barriers that separate the players, staff and media from the general fans. As I approached one featured table in the Amazon, a preppy looking 50ish man approached with a question. Press always have an answer, right? When I politely provided gave him his answer, he eagerly opened up about his good fortune at this year's World Series of Poker.

He is a divorced guy from Long Island who plays tournaments from Foxwoods down to Borgata in Atlantic City where his mother lives. Last fall he had been asked to join a home game that was playing a several months long points qualifying league for a ticket to the Main Event. It was $800 to enter. He didn't know the guys, but was urged to join otherwise they wouldn't have enough players. He said "what the heck." It turns out he won the points crown easily in 6 weeks and then the seventh week they played it for cash, which he won too for an additional $1,000 to help pay for his Vegas trip.

He played on Day 1C at an interesting table. The table got some media attention because Paul Pritchard was playing at the table. Paul won his Main Event seat by hitting a hole-in-one at some golf tournament. The table also had the distinction of having all 9 players play all day long together with not a single elimination. He advanced to Day 2 with 39k.

Feeling good about his poker prospects, he ventured to play some cash games afterwards. He admitted that historically he's a big fish in cash games, always losing. But with a few beers in him, he plunked down $200 to see what might happen. His run of good fortune continued as he ran his stack all the way up to $1,600 with a bunch of lucky hands and multiple river suckouts, readily admitting he wasn't playing that well.

To top it all off, he insisted on telling me he had been corresponding on PlentyofFish, the dating website, with a stewardess. She heard he would be in Vegas and asked her employer for a special route from Houston to L.A. later this week so she could stop through Las Vegas for a couple days to finally meet this lucky gent. His reaction as he left me with his tales of good fortune was a hearty "Booya!" This man clearly knows how to ride out a heater.

The first Day 2 begins tomorrow, combining Day 1A and 1C.

Author

Gosu "GosuGamers" Gamers