Bracelet Winners Yockey and Friedman Jockey for Top Spot
The true test of poker versatility has begun at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, as Day 1 of $10,000 Dealer's Choice wrapped up just past 2 a.m. Friday morning with 41 players, less than half of the field, remaining.
Dealer's Choice gives players a unique opportunity to play some games at a high-stakes level that are never ordinarily present in tournament poker. The format appears to have a solid following of about 100 loyal players, as 103 turned out so far with registration still open until the first cards come off the deck on Friday afternoon. That's already one better than last year's total.
World Series of Poker bracelet winners Bryce Yockey and Adam Friedman led the way when the plaques were finally done being shuffled for the night. Yockey finished with 328,500 and Friedman narrowly behind with 316,700.
Friedman said he wasn't playing much of a tournament schedule this summer but couldn't resist firing this event, one he has said he looks forward to every year. He showed up a few hours in and got the ball rolling early with a big bluff holding blockers against Chris Vitch in Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo. He rocketed from 50,000 to 240,000 in about 40 minutes in the latter stages of the day.
Yockey, who grabbed his first bracelet just last year in the $10,000 PLO8 Championship, had a huge stack from start to finish. He knocked out defending champ John Racener in Limit Omaha, flopping a set of eights and taking Racener's last few crumbs to ensure there wouldn't be a repeat winner.
Dylan Linde (224,700), Marco Johnson (204,700), Ray Dehkharghani (148,500) and Daniel Negreanu (125,500) also bagged solid stacks.
The field was significantly trimmed as despite a chunk of the games having limit formats and split pots, plenty of big-bet action took place in games like No-Limit Hold'em, PLO and especially Pot-Limit 2-7 triple draw. The graveyard reads like a list of poker's most accomplished, including Mike Leah, Stephen Chidwick, Phil Galfond, Paul Volpe and John Hennigan.
Play resumes at 2 p.m. on Friday, June 8, so come back PokerNews to continue following updates of this event.
Room | Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Amazon | 430 | 1 | Viacheslav Zhukov | Russia | 21,200 |
Amazon | 430 | 2 | Alberto Attie | Mexico | 49,000 |
Amazon | 430 | 4 | Jake Abdalla | United States | 46,300 |
Amazon | 430 | 5 | Alexey Makarov | Russia | 192,600 |
Amazon | 430 | 6 | Joseph Couden | United States | 196,200 |
Amazon | 431 | 1 | David Benyamine | United States | 160,100 |
Amazon | 431 | 2 | Adam Friedman | United States | 316,700 |
Amazon | 431 | 3 | Jyri Merivirta | Finland | 52,900 |
Amazon | 431 | 4 | Steven Loube | United States | 99,200 |
Amazon | 431 | 5 | Randy Ohel | United States | 67,800 |
Amazon | 437 | 2 | Chris Klodnicki | United States | 174,000 |
Amazon | 437 | 3 | Quinn Do | United States | 171,700 |
Amazon | 437 | 4 | Ray Dehkharghani | United States | 148,500 |
Amazon | 437 | 5 | Bryce Yockey | United States | 328,500 |
Amazon | 437 | 6 | Lawrence Berg | United States | 167,900 |
Amazon | 438 | 1 | Ben Yu | United States | 48,300 |
Amazon | 438 | 3 | Daniel Negreanu | Canada | 125,500 |
Amazon | 438 | 4 | Mike Matusow | United States | 163,600 |
Amazon | 438 | 5 | Timothy Batow | United States | 166,960 |
Amazon | 438 | 6 | Dylan Linde | United States | 224,700 |
Amazon | 439 | 2 | Yueqi Zhu | China | 29,300 |
Amazon | 439 | 3 | Marco Johnson | United States | 204,700 |
Amazon | 439 | 4 | Jon Turner | United States | 240,700 |
Amazon | 439 | 5 | Anthony Zinno | United States | 48,500 |
Amazon | 439 | 6 | Gavin Smith | Canada | 64,700 |
Amazon | 445 | 1 | Aditya Prasetyo | United States | 188,400 |
Amazon | 445 | 2 | Noah Bronstein | United States | 137,500 |
Amazon | 445 | 3 | Shawn Buchanan | Canada | 42,900 |
Amazon | 445 | 4 | David Moskowitz | United States | 86,700 |
Amazon | 445 | 5 | Jordan Siegel | United States | 159,600 |
Amazon | 445 | 6 | Schuyler Thornton | United States | 183,300 |
Amazon | 446 | 1 | Stuart Rutter | United Kingdom | 99,900 |
Amazon | 446 | 2 | David "ODB" Baker | United States | 108,800 |
Amazon | 446 | 3 | Mikko Hirvonen | United Kingdom | 131,001 |
Amazon | 446 | 5 | David Bach | United States | 110,900 |
Amazon | 446 | 6 | James Obst | Australia | 69,100 |
Amazon | 447 | 1 | Jesse Martin | United States | 71,500 |
Amazon | 447 | 2 | Carol Fuchs | United States | 43,800 |
Amazon | 447 | 3 | Nikolai Yakovenko | Russia | 80,000 |
Amazon | 447 | 4 | James Woods | United States | 92,800 |
Amazon | 447 | 6 | Calvin Anderson | United States | 33,700 |