On table Goodwin, they've had more high pairs than Jimmy Choo's. The AA-QQ set-over-set earlier was preceded and followed by more confrontations of big starting hands. Chips have been flying around the table, most recently, from Dirk Dijkstra to Shaun Deeb. Dijkstra picked up the Aces, Deeb the Kings, and after a preflop raise or two, they saw a Q-5-5 flop and got it all in. Bang - King on the turn, short stack for Dijkstra.
With the board reading , Bertrand Grosspellier makes a 3,500 chip bet on the river, with a nice pot already in the middle. His opponent thinks and thinks, and ultimately makes the call. Elky shows , and his opponent mucks. ElkY is up to 33,000 early.
THE FIFTY--EPT creator John Duthie got his last 9,000 in holding the on a flop of but ran into Daniel Schumacher's . The turn was the , the river was the , and Duthie made an early exit from the Main Event.
Three top players have been placed in consecutive seats today, Daniel Negreanu (27,125), Ben Roberts (17,675) and Alan Goehring (10,900) all vying for that WSOPE bracelet.
However, the only thing I can see that they have in common is that they are all pros. Whilst Daniel nonchalantly tinkers with his phone, boredom setting in as he searches for someone to banter with, Alan is all business, sitting upright with his shades on and focusing intently on every hand that passes by.
Meanwhile, Ben Roberts, who is perhaps the World's best Omaha player, and vastly underrated to boot, is somewhat in the middle, relaxed and composed, but still paying attention to everything around him. Ben has a real 'butter would melt in my mouth' kind of look about him, but like the shark that he is, if he smells weakness, he'll pounce.
It'll be interesting to see how these contrasting styles and personalities mesh as the tournament progresses.
THE FIFTY-- Andy Black has not only been talkative in the early going here, he's been involved in more than his fair share of pots,
In one hand, Black raised the button and got a caller in Luke Patten from the big blind. The flop came down . Patten bet out 400 and Black called. The turn was the . Patten checked, Black bet 600, Patten raised to 2,500 and Black practically beat him into the pot with a call. The river was the . Patten bet 4,000, Black raised to 8,000 and Patten mucked his hand.
After that pot, Black was north of 36,000 in chips.
THE FIFTY-- It was just announced here at the Fifty that there will be two Day 2s. Players who survived Day 1A will gather at the Empire to play Day 2 tomorrow, while all players who survive today's Day 1B will play their Day 2 on Thursday.
THE FIFTY-- Mark Vos' 7,000 chip stack appears to be the shortest, at least in this room, though he seems rather unfazed by it. Since he doesn't have the stack to construct one of his typically elaborate chip edifices, Vos has been thumbing through a copy of a newspaper called "The Daily Sport" for the last several minutes which, apparently, includes a slew of photos of topless ladies in the advertisments in paper's back pages. He seemed fixated on one particular buxom blonde...