Daniel Negreanu is here playing today and he's a little bit upset about the way the tournament late registration tables are being set up. The fact that each table has to wait until eight seats are sold until they start dealing is taking a decent amount of time away from play. Negreanu tried to talk to the staff about this, but it's just the way it's done here. "I guess I'm going to have to write another blog!" said Negreanu.
Scott Clements had another issue. He brought his laptop here to try and play the big Sunday events online while grinding this event. The staff won't let him and that's something he'd like to have changed.
There are a couple of draws that we've spotted to be pretty tough here on Day 1b on The Big Event. David "ODB" Baker, Matt Affleck and Dwyte Pilgrim are all seated together while John Dolan, Ali Eslami, Jason Young and Michael Katz are together at another table.
Action folded to Ken Lawson in the cutoff seat and he raised to 250. Joe Cada reraised to 800 from the button and then Al Grimes flat-called from the small blind. Lawson also made the call.
The flop came down and Grimes led out with a bet of 1,500. Lawson raised to 4,000 and Cada ducked out of the way. Grimes then made it 12,000 and Lawson moved all in. Grimes called and tabled top set with . Lawson held the for a big combo draw.
The turn bricked, but a heart fell on the river and it wasn't one that paired the board. That meant Grimes' hand was second best and he was eliminated from the tournament.
Cada told us afterwards that he had aces and let them go on the flop. Good fold, Joe.
So far we've spotted the following players making their way to their respective tables:
Kathy Liebert
Carter Phillips
Matt Affleck
David "ODB" Baker
Dwyte Pilgrim
Allen Kessler
Al Grimes
Mel Judah
Joe Cada
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Daniel Negreanu
Yesterday the Big Event Main Event kicked-off at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California with 263 players forking over the $5,000 buy-in on Day 1a. Today, a whole new field of players will take to the felt on Day 1b for their shot at a major Los Angeles poker title. No doubt all will be hoping to finish as high as the Day 1a chip leader, Chris DeMaci, who bagged an impressive 213,300.
Today's field is expected to be a bit smaller than yesterday's given the major online tournaments being offered; however, that doesn't mean we won't have our fair share of pros. Kathy Liebert, Dwyte Pilgrim, and Amit Makhija are just a few of the pros we've seen walking around. They'll all no doubt be hoping to survive the day as Pat Pezzin, Joe Hachem, Tom McEvoy, Victor Ramdin, Govert Metaal, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Joseph Cheong, James Mackey, Anh Van Nguyen, Greg Debora and Jeff Williams all did on Day 1a.
Day 1b is set to begin at Noon PST, just a little less than an hour from now, and the action should be fierce. In addition, we'll find out the official number of entrants and prize pool once registration closes.
As always, PokerNews will be here to bring you all the latest hands, action, and eliminations, live, from the Big Event at The Bicycle Casino.