Welcome to Day 2 of Event #17 $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em; the event where the famous words, "all-in," are replaced by the single word, "pot." The removal of the ability to shove your chips into the middle, and the absence of antes, means that this format is a little slower than its Cadillac cousin. But despite the reduction in speed the quality of poker on display is amazing, and this is because of the calibre of players left in the 69 man and woman strong field.
In the top ten we have the chip leader Steve Landfish with two World Series of Poker final table appearances under his belt, multiple bracelet winner Farzad Bonyadi, one of the most feared players on the planet and last years WSOPE Main Event runner-up Chris Moorman, bracelet winner and World Poker Tour (WPT) champion David Benyamine, poker's golden couple and double European Poker Tour (EPT) winners Kevin MacPhee and Liv Boeree and finally multiple bracelet winner and all-time money leader Erik Seidel.
If you add Phil Ivey, Shaun Deeb, Sorel Mizzi, JP Kelly, Olivier Busquet, Antonio Esfandiari et al into the mix then this is some tournament and it is going to take some winning!
The Day 2 action starts at 13:00 PM direct from the Amazon room. The Pokernews team will be on site to bring you the very best coverage on the planet so stay tuned.
That's what Jon Aguiar asked us as he looked across at the table adjacent to him. "You should just put that one on the stage," he said. "People are going to want to see that."
The table he's talking about is Table 447, and it's awfully tough:
Marco Traniello is vying for his second 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP) cash after finishing in 20th place in Event #7 $1,500 Seven Card Stud. He came into the day towards the bottom tier of the chip counts with only 28,000 chips but has just doubled up.
There was an early position raise to 3,600 when Traniello raised pot from the big blind leaving 16,000 behind. His opponent made the call and when the hit the flop Traniello moved all-in. His opponent called and when the cards were over turned Traniello was in great shape.
Traniello
Opponent
The turn and river was trey-less and Traniello was up to 56,000 chips.
Chris Moorman opened to 3,500 from middle position before Nabih Zaczac potted to 12,900. That put Moorman in a tough spot. Zaczac only started the hand with 16,100 chips, and by the look on his face, Moorman had raised a bit light. He spent a couple minutes pondering, then dropped the covering raise into the pot. Zaczac quickly called all in, and he tabled .
Moorman immediately smacked himself in the forehead, then let out a laugh as he showed up .
He runs pretty good, and the flop gave him four outs to the straight. He'd brick the turn and river, though, and Zaczac has doubled.
"I'll tell you what," Will Failla piped up. "If you give me $10,000, I'll shave every single hair on Ali Eslami's head."
A game of "Lodden Thinks" has broken out on the table nearest us, and the questions have so far been pretty run-of-the-mill. "How much would it take for Ali to shave his head?" and "How many women has Ali been with?"
Vinny Pahuja just came walking past the table, though, and Antonio Esfandiari asked him for a prompt. "All right, I got one," Pahuja decided quickly . "How many people will die at EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival) this weekend?"
It's a bit sinister for Lodden thinks, but that didn't stop Esfandiari from answering. "It has to be like... two or three," he said.
Former November Niner Matt Giannetti is having a moment of quiet contemplation over at Table #447. The reason Giannetti is so quiet is because of a man named Shaun Deeb.
Unfortunately, we only caught the tail end of the action. The board was showing and there was 70,000 in the pot. Deeb was in the cutoff and he had made a river bet of around 40,000. Giannetti was seated on the button and was dwelling in the tank. Eventually Giannetti made the call and Deeb turned over for trips and Giannetti mucked his hand.