Event #32: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em / Six Handed
Day 1 Started
Event #32: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em / Six Handed
Day 1 Started
Good morning and welcome back to the Rio. The The near-endless vista of the Pavillion Room lies before us, and before long the tables - currently empty but for a dealer apiece - will be crammed with poker players.
Last year this event drew 928 runners and Matt Hawrilenko was the eventual victor. We fully expect him to be defending his title, and indeed we are expecting most of your favorite big-name pros to turn out for this one.
Play is due to start in around half an hour. Until then, sit tight.
Level: 1
Blinds: 50/75
Ante: 0
The button is in Seat 6 and the cards are in the air!
Right off the bat we've spotted a few familiar faces including Luke "IWEARGOGGLES" Staudenmaier, Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin, Barry Shulman, Chris Moorman, Brent Hanks, David "Raptor" Benefield, Matt Graham, Isaac Haxton and Shane "Shaniac" Schleger.
To be honest, not that many. Almost fifteen minutes into the first level and many tables are playing heads up or three-way - a few just have a dealer and a single player, riffling chips, waiting for an opponent.
Nevertheless the field that has managed to make it here for the start is pretty stacked. So far we've spotted Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moorman, David Benyamine, Devilfish, Andy Black, Arnaud Mattern, Scotty Nguyen and Jennifer Tilly - to name but a few.
Obviously players are still streaming in, but one table has already emerged as particularly fearsome, boasting as it does right now Humberto Brenes, John Racener and Roland de Wolfe. Actually those are the only three players at that table at the moment. We can only imagine how the casual $5k six-max punter's heart might sink upon reaching his table and finding those three waiting for him there. Good luck!
The board had already run out when we reached Alan Sass' table.
A player sitting under the gun bet 2,000 and Sass min-raised to 4,000.
"I don't think you're bluffing," he said to Sass. Still, he called.
Sass wasn't bluffing, he turned over for a straight and his opponent mucked. The hand has Sass up to 20,000 chips here in the first level of play.
Players started with 15,000 chips today and the blinds are 50/75 here in Level 1, but that didn't stop Jared "TheWacoKidd" Hamby from making a huge bet preflop.
An opponent raised to 200 from under the gun and Hamby three-bet to 625 from the cutoff. Another player on the button four-bet to 1,425 and the action folded back to Hamby who tanked momentarily. He eventually grabbed his entire stack and push it forward.
The player on the button immediately kicked his cards in and Hamby chipped up to 17,000.
A good few players have been complaining about the fact that the empty seats at their tables have not yet been filled - almost an hour into the event, very few tables actually have six players at them, and many are still four-handed.
Enough people have registered to fill the seats, but because they're not allowed in until the start of the next level, their seats will most likely be staying empty for a little while yet.
"They shouldn't change the entire structure of the tournament to suit people that wanted to sleep in," one player was heard loudly complaining. "We didn't sign up to play four-max."
Although if you wanted short-handed, this is the place to be right now.