2009 World Series of Poker

Event 40 - $10,000 World Championship Pot Limit Omaha
Day: 1
123
Event Info

2009 World Series of Poker

Final Results
Winner
Matt Graham
Winning Hand
10♣10♥6♣5♠
Prize
$679,379
Event Info
Buy-in
$10,000
Entries
295
Level Info
Level
29
Blinds
60,000 / 120,000
Ante
0
Sort

$10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship

[user67765]
[user67765]
Welcome back to our continued live coverage of the 2009 World Series of Poker. Incredibly, after a blur of events over the past four weeks, we've now reached Event #40 of the series, and it's a biggie - the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship.

Outside of the Main Event and the $50k HORSE, this event is one that excites the pros more than any the others. PLO is an action game, with plenty of big pots and big names set to hit the felt in around 90 minutes -- 5pm local time.

Last year, 381 players participated in this event with Marty Smyth capturing the title and a whopping $859,532 in prize money.

With another huge prize pool expected and another bracelet up for grabs, we should be in for an entertaining three days of poker! We hope you'll stick around!

Slight Delay

[user67765]
[user67765]
The players are slowly taking their seats for today's $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship. It looks like the start time has been bumped back a few minutes to allow the late-comers a chance to register, so we're about ten minutes away from a start.

Level: 1

Blinds: 50/100

Ante: 0

Shuffle Up and Deal!

[user67765]
[user67765]
The players have taken their seats with the board currently displaying 226 entrants, but we expect that number to climb until registrations close.

The immortal words have been spoken and the cards are in the air!

Triple Chance

[user76023]
[user76023]
Today's tournament is a triple chance tournament. Each player gets 10,000 chips with two second chance chips worth 10,000 each, which can be taken at any time, but must be taken by the end of level three.

It remains to be seen whether players will take them all at once or decide to wait for now.

A Couple of Names

[user67765]
[user67765]
The World Championship events always bring the cream of the crop to the felt and today's field is no exception.

Many tables are starting off short-handed, but during our first pass of the nearby tables we spotted John Juanda, Tom McEvoy, Berry Johnson, Humberto Brenes, Erik Seidel, Noah Boeken, David Benyamine, Nikolay Edvakov, Dario Minieri and Sam Khouiss (who are seated together on a table which is currently four-handed), and duel-bracelet winner Brock Parker.

Some Interesting Tables

[user67765]
[user67765]
A couple of Australians in the field are WSOP bracelet-holder Gary Benson and PLO online phenom Harris Pavlou. Interestingly, they are starting off at the very same table and are joined by David "DevilFish" Ulliott. Another pair of Aussies also find themselves together with Julian Powell and Roy Bhasin starting on the same table.

Another interesting table which is currently playing four-handed, includes Hassan Habib, Kirill Gerasimov, Vitaly Lunkin and Ilari Sahamies. We're sure to see some fireworks there! To make matters worse, the table is has just become five-handed with the addition of Brandon Adams.

On the other side of the Brasilia Room, the table that caught our eye was the one featuring Robert Mizrachi, Scotty Nguyen, Isaac Haxton and Mike Matusow.

Just to Name a Few More...

[user67765]
[user67765]
The list of big names in today's field continues to grow. How's this for talent...Erick Lindgren, Eli Elezra, Layne Flack, JC Tran, Max Pescatori, Scott Clements, David Williams, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Alaei, Jason Mercier, Jimmy Fricke, Lee Watkinson, Shaun Deeb, Ville Wahlbeck and Vanessa Selbst...just to name a few.

Will Antonius Make An Appearance?

[user67765]
[user67765]
One of the big talking points of this event was the anticipated 2009 WSOP debut for one Patrik Antonius. In a recent interview with Gloria Balding for PokerNews Video, Antonius indicated that he'd struggled recently with illness and motivation, but had every intention of playing this event today.

He is yet to be spotted here today, but as we know, the cool kids don't arrive for class on time. So will Antonius make an appearance?
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