We're just about ten minutes away from the start of Day 2b of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event. We have a huge field of over 2,900 players returning to play today. "Every table in the building," said a tourney official when asked where we they would be seated.
Vanessa Rousso started the day on the short stack with less than 7,000 chips. She picked up here in the early going, and pushed all in and had a caller in Ricky Tang who held .
While the Miranda Room is a little removed from the heart of the action of the WSOP, the quiet setting of the smaller room actually provides a calming backdrop to probable carnage that is developing in the bigger rooms of the Rio.
Some of the notables players in this area include Justin Bonomo, Alex Bolotin, Jess Lisandro, Chad Brown, John Juanda, Amnon Filippi, Bertrand Grospellier, Dutch Boyd and Phil Ivey. However most appear to have drawn relatively good tables with only Bonomo and Bolotin seated together.
Steve Wong called an opponent's all in holding to be in great shape against .
The board up until the turn was looking great for Wong with it reading .
However when the river fell the , Wong rivered a set to give his opponent a queen-high straight as he slipped to 26,000 as his opponent doubled back to over 20,000 in chips.
Vinny Pahuja limped in from early-middle position before Erick Lindgren raised to 2,500 from the hijack seat. The big blind, Craig Ivey, made the call and then Pahuja called as well.
The flop came down and Ivey led out for a bet of 6,000. Pahuja folded and action was now back on Lindgren. He splashed the rest of his chips into the pot for a total all-in bet of 17,500. Ivey made the call.
When the hands were revealed, Ivey showed . Lindgren tabled a better overpair with . The ESPN cameras were on hand to catch the action and the dealer paused before the turn while the film crew got everything set up nicely.
The turn was then dealt and the hit the felt. The look on Lindgren's face wasn't too pleasing. He now knew his opponent could make a straight as well as hit a jack.
Another pause for the cameras and then the dealer dealt the river. The river was the to put Ivey in the lead and with no more cards to come, that would be the end of Lindgren's tournament. He got it in good, but just couldn't hold on. Lindgren grabbed his bag and headed to the exit.
Paul Parker seems to have raised somewhere along the line, as there was 7,000 in front of him when we arrived at the table, and another gentleman had all his chips in the middle, to easily cover him.
After a moment's consideration, Parker tossed the rest of his 29,000 stack into the pot. It wasn't looking good...
Parker:
Mr. Opponent:
Board: .....
A very fortunate double-up indeed puts Mr. Parker up to 60,000. The dealer attempted to shortchange him briefly, before correcting his mistake. "I'm just delighted to have any money back," said Parker. "Give me my 29 back and I'm delighted."
Phil Hellmuth is on the Main Feature table to start the day. He's joined by Todd "Dan Druff" Witteles. Hellmuth starts the day with a below average stack of 27,475, and Witteles is especially short with 9,625. The big stack over there belongs to Ben Sprengers who is over 110,000.
On the secondary feature table, we find Dennis Phillips, who finished third in the 2008 WSOP Main Event, and Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi. Phillips starts the day with 62,325, while Mizrachi begins with 49,775.
As usual, our access will be somewhat limited to the feature tables, but we'll try to provide periodic updates when possible.