Nick Schulman recently busted from Event No. 14 and has bought in over here. He and Mike Matusow are paying close attention to the television screen over their shoulders as they watch the Boston Celtics take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the second game of the NBA Finals. After the last shot that was just made by Celtic Rasheed Wallace, Schulman yelled over to Matusow, "That's Rasheed Wallace, Mike! Gettin' wet!"
With a grim smirk on his face Matusow replied, "Whatever, they gotta win two in L.A. to win the thing. Not gonna happen."
Matusow is rocking a bright yellow Kobe Bryant jersey and pulling for them to win while Schulman looks to be pulling for Boston. This is the twelfth time these two teams have met in the NBA Finals, with the Celtics holding the edge 9-2 over the Lakers. In the history of their franchises, the Celtics have 17 NBA titles and the Lakers hold 15.
Fifteen tables are presently in action in this event and rather than hearing some happy-go-lucky banter between the players, we're hearing a lot of...shuffling of chips. Most of them seem quite dialed-in, jamming to music on their iPods or checking out the Lakers-Celtics game on one of the room's flatscreen TVs. Phil Ivey, for one, has hardly turned around to face the table and instead is fixated on the NBA action, as is Doyle Brunson, who has been pounding the Celtics according to his recent Twitters.
As has been the norm for the bigger buy-in events for this year's World Series of Poker, the Russian contingency is out in full effect. Vladimir Schmelev has had himself one heck of a WSOP so far, coming in second place in the $50,000 Player's Championship and then scoring a seventh-place finish in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship, so you know he's going to be no slouch in stud. He's in the field along with Alexander Kostritsyn who regularly crushes high-stakes mixed games online. Ralph Perry is also here and he's got nearly $3 million in career tournament winnings.
Sorel Mizzi has been seen wandering around the tournament area here in the blue section of the Amazon Room like a lost puppy. It turns out that when Mizzi registered for this event, the registration staff accidentally registered him for another event. When Mizzi went to take his seat, he found this out and is now dealing with the situation. A few hands lost shouldn't be too hard to make up for the young superstar as they get the situation resolved.
Along with the slew of big names in the field, Team PokerStars is heavily represented as well. Team USA pros Jason Mercier, Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein and Chad Brown are all here as is Team Online member George Lind III. Team Canada is represented so far by Pat Pezzin and Daniel Negreanu. Also, Friend of PokerStars Bill Chen is playing.
As you might have guessed, Event No. 15 has drawn quite the stellar turnout of players. Everywhere you look there's a famous poker face to be seen. Just running through some of the names we've got Scotty Nguyen, Jennifer Harman, Annie Duke, Doyle Brunson, Mike Sexton, Mike Matusow, Nick Schulman and John Juanda all in the building.
The defending champion, Jeffrey Lisandro, is also here. Last year, Lisandro claimed three bracelets and all came from stud variants, making him one of the most feared players in the field today.
One year ago, Jeffrey Lisandro put the second spike in his Triple Crown of stud poker, winning his second bracelet of 2009 and his third overall in this event, the $10,000 World Championship of Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo. Lisandro's win came after defeating one of the toughest final tables of last summer's WSOP, filled with the likes of Justin "Boosted J" Smith, Abe Mosseri, Mike Wattel and the legendary Doyle Brunson.
164 players came out for last year's event and as we sit in the nearly-empty Amazon Ballroom, the tables in the blue section are being stocked with chips and staffed with dealers. We've already spotted players like Cyndy Violette, Dan Shak, and David Sklansky roaming the halls and in about half an hour's time, we'll see if they take a seat.
Action is scheduled to commence at 5 p.m. local time. Stay tuned.
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