Event #30: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Day 1 Started
2011 World Series of Poker
Event #30: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Day: 1
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2011 World Series of Poker
Buy-in
$1,000
Prize Pool
$3,376,800
Entries
3,752
Level
30
Blinds
50,000 / 100,000
Ante
10,000
Welcome to Event #30: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship!
Today marks day one of our annual Seniors Championship here at the WSOP, which means that we’re more than half way through the 2011 WSOP events already! The Seniors Championship is reserved for players age 50 and over, and we can already see fountains of wisdom and experience filing into the Pavilion for their chance to claim WSOP glory. We do not know the exact number of entrants just yet, but the announcer has just informed us that they expect this year’s Seniors Event to be the largest in history.
Last year it was 78-year-old Harold Angle who claimed the $487,994 first-place prize and WSOP gold bracelet that goes with it. This proves that age is not a factor in one's ability to play great poker, which is just part of the reason that makes poker so great.
Stay tuned to PokerNews as we play through our first 10 levels on our way to crowning a new champion!
Level: 1
Blinds: 25/25
Ante: 0
Shuffle Up And Deal!
![[user197301]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
Level 1
: 25/25, 0 ante
Legendary senior poker player Oklahoma Johnny Hale was on hand here this afternoon to deliver the best words in poker and begin the tournament.
Batson Blasts Off With Pocket Rockets
Level 1
: 25/25, 0 ante
While the seniors tournament may strike some observers as one of the more casual events at the WSOP, a quick walk around the Pavilion Room would indicate otherwise. The players are serious about playing their best here on poker's grand stage, and we caught up with one who is doing just that.
Jim Batson was seen crippling an opponent at his table with the mother of all poker hands, 
. We heard Batson's opponent slam the table in defeat and, cursing as she saw her 
bested by aces full of tens on a board reading 
board.
The woman had flopped a pair of aces herself and made Broadway on the turn, only to see her chances of building a big chip stack early sunk when Batson made his boat on the river. He now sits with approximately 5,650 while his opponent was dropped to just under 600 in the tournament's first level.
Kenny "Badhat" Piel Looking for 3rd Seniors Event Cash
Level 1
: 25/25, 0 ante
The Pavilion room is packed with players for the senior event and for those who thought this event was going to be off to a slow start are wrong. Kenny "Badhat" Piel has already sent two players to the rail. In his first hand he had the nut flush against trip jacks and in his second hand he had trip sevens against trip fours.
Piel resides in Tunica, Mississippi and has played in the Seniors event for six consecutive years. He has cashed two times in this event and is looking for his third one. Right now he sits on top of the leader board with 8,500 in chips.
Phillips Gone, Still Searching for Notables
Level 1
: 25/25, 0 ante
As we scoured the huge field, which extends into both the Pavilion and Amazon Room, we noticed 3rd-place finisher of the 2008 WSOP Dennis Phillips walking down the hall. We asked him where he was sitting, but were informed he had already busted!
"Aces versus tens...what was I thinking? I had the Aces!" Phillips explained.
Other than Phillips, we've recognized T.J Cloutier, Lon McEachern, Thor Hansen, Tom Schneider and Charles "Woody" Moore. We've been told Susie Isaacs is also with us today, but we have not yet spotted her as we continue to search our way through this vast field of players.
Ron Blankenship Ships It With Set Of Nines
Level 1
: 25/25, 0 ante
We spotted a table full of players standing up and sorting through the wreckage of a three way all-in confrontation. One opponent had his laid out in front of him, while another had tabled 
. Blankenship's 
appeared to have him bad shape, but when the dealer spread a final board of 
across the felt, his set of nines was good for a triple-up.
Blankenship eliminated one opponent on the hand and crippled another, while boosting his stack to nearly 8,500 chips. Like many of his fellow seniors, Blankenship was a bit taken aback with the idea of being reported on, saying simply "Shoot, this is my first day here" when asked for his thoughts on the hand.
Level: 2
Blinds: 25/50
Ante: 0
Underdog In The House
Level 2
: 25/50, 0 ante
Among the thousands and thousands of players who may consider themselves underdogs while playing in this years Seniors Tournament, we spotted one player who really was Underdog.
Tim LaRoache began today's tournament dressed up in what we must admit is a perfectly rendered costume of any cartoon connoisseur's favorite canine character, Underdog. Complete with a bright red, pajama-style suit, a flowing blue cape and even a hat with dangling dog ears, LaRoache's get-up couldn't help but draw our attention.
When we caught up with LaRoache to ask what inspired him to dress up as Underdog, he told us that it all started back at his home casino of Foxwoods in Connecticut. According to LaRoache, he played in one of the casino's signature $10,000 WPT events and went into competition as the decided underdog. Since then, people know him by that name and he decided that once he turned 50, he would play in the Seniors Tournament dressed as his namesake.
LaRoache told us "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all out," and that living up to that Underdog spirit is what this event is really all about.