Event 35 - $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Day 1 | 2009 World Series of Poker

06-17-2009 07:54 UTC-12

More Pros Rolling In

The likes of Daniel 'Kid Poker' Negreanu, Sorel Mizzi, Scotty Nguyen, Nam Le, David 'Devilfish' Ulliott, Noah Boeken, Amnon Filippi, John-Paul Kelly, Joe Beevers, Robert Mizrachi, Max Pescatori and Bruno Fitoussi have all taken their seats in Amazon Blue. The runner count has eclipsed 300 players and currently stands at 302.

06-17-2009 07:46 UTC-12

Nathan Chipping Up Early

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On a flop showing {Q-Spades}

, the small blind checked, Rayan Nathan checked from the big blind, and a late position player (LPP) made it 1,000 to go. The small blind then check-raised to 3,000 and Nathan moved all in for a total of 4,750. The LPP tossed his cards into the muck pile and the small blind made the call, tabling: {K-Spades}

, good for a pair of kings and a flush draw. Nathan tabled {Q-Diamonds}

for top set, and the turn and river bricked out {8-Hearts}

,

giving Nathan the checkmark for the hand.

The ChipMeUp entrepreneur now has just over 20,000 in chips.

Tags: Rayan Nathan

06-17-2009 07:37 UTC-12

Name Game

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Players are pouring into the room now and the tournament clock currently shows a field size of 283 runners, which will likely creep past the 300 mark in a matter of minutes. Some additional names we've added to the radar include:

Noah Schwartz
Hevad Khan
Shawn Buchanan
John Juanda
Bill Chen
Erick Lindgren
Carlos Mortensen
Vanessa Selbst
Isaac Haxton
Robert Williamson III
Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Kido Pham
Van Marcus

06-17-2009 07:30 UTC-12

Seidel Snags One Early

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One of our field reporters stumbled upon a hand involving Erik Seidel and an unknown opponent, in which the chips were already in the middle and the cards already on their backs:

Seidel: {A-Hearts}

Opponent:

The community cards came {6-Spades}

and Seidel's aces held up to win the pot, bringing him to 21,000 in chips (including his two add-on tokens).

Tags: Erik Seidel

06-17-2009 07:15 UTC-12

Faces in the Crowd

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As expected, the field is jam-packed with heaps of poker's biggest names. Here are a few of the names we've spotted thus far:

Jeffrey Lisandro
Shaun Deeb
Jason Mercier
Vitaly Lunkin
Alan Smurfit
Ted Lawson
Eric Liu
Berry Johnston
Brock Parker
Eric Lynch
Mike Sexton
Kirill Gerasimov
Jesper Hougaard
Jacobo Fernandez
Barry Greenstein
Sandra Naujoks
Erik Seidel
Michael Pesek
Humberto Brenes
Sam Khouiss
Eric Froehlich
Lee Watkinson

Level: 1

Blinds: 50/100

Ante: 0

06-17-2009 07:11 UTC-12

Get 'em In the Air

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Players are still slowly trickling into the tournament area, but the clock waits for no one. Glancing around the room, it looks like approximately three fifths of the stacks in play are manned (or womanned?) at the moment, but that will surely change over the next two hours as the remaining entrants filter into the room.

Tournament Director Jack Effel just went over a few ground rules before giving the command to 'Shuffle up and deal,' and we're officially underway!

06-17-2009 06:22 UTC-12

Event 35: $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha - Day 1

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The WSOP has a foot on the brakes today, as only one new event is scheduled for this afternoon: a $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha tournament, slated to begin at 12:00 noon local time. Some have referred to this event as a 'warm-up' for this week's $10,000 World Championship PLO Event, meaning we're likely to see the best Omaha players in the world hit the felt in droves, prepping for the big one.

Phil Galfond took down last year's $5,000 PLO Event, earning himself a $817,781 payday, but the event received a major facelift during the off-season. Last year, rebuys were permitted, and the 152 players who entered generated 483 of them. This time around, rebuys are not an option. Instead, players will start with two 'add-on chips' worth 5,000 each, which they can activate at any time during the first three levels. Use up all three bullets and you're out; it's that simple.

Stay tuned... we're live from the Amazon Room at noon!