Jeff Manza Leads Day 1 of Event #23 $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed
If No-Limit Texas Hold'em is the Cadillac of poker then No-Limit Texas Hold'em Six-Handed poker is the Ferrari. Event #23 started with 924 players and we lost two-thirds of the field in the first six-levels.
The action was frenetic, fast and fine and when the last card had settled on the felt there were 141 players that remained in the hunt for a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet. As usual we have to have somebody with more chips than everyone else, and that honor goes to Jeff Manza who bagged and tagged 275,000 chips.
Manza won the majority of his chips when he flopped a set of sevens in a three-way pot worth 195,000 chips. Then as the floor announced the last four hands. Manza called down a three-street bluff from Florian Langmann holding on a board to cement his top spot berth,
But long before Manza had amassed his chips people were dropping like flies. WSOP bracelet holder Fabrice Soulier and WSOP final tablist John Eames both joining the list of early casualties as they departed in the very first level. Then multiple WSOP bracelet holder Daniel Negreanu joined the fray, scampering out of the door when his flush draw missed the turn and river in a fatal hand against the relatively unknown Jay Conley.
Mickey "mement_mori" Petersen won a flip against Lex Veldhuis, Kevin Iacofano evicted 2010 WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela and Andrea Dato busted Arnaud Mattern, At the other end of the chip counts WSOP bracelet winner Andre Akkari became the first player to grab our attention. It was a case of Diamonds Are For-This Flop as Akkari nailed a flop holding to double up through his hopeful opponent holding . Akkari had 45,000 chips and became our early leader.
WSOP bracelet winner Matt Perrins eliminated Ana Marquez and then her boyfriend Bryn Kenney followed her out of the door after a torrid Day 1. Kenney lost aces versus aces, after his opponent hit a four-flush, then flopped top-set of aces to lose to a five high flush on the river.
Back to the top of the charts and Jason Pritchard flopped quad queens on his way to a chip stack containing 80,000 plastic discs. Pritchard deposing Akkari at the top of the chip counts and he was joined by the likes of Scott Montgomery, Owen Crowe, Scott Seiver, Steve Gross and Matt Stout.
After the dinner break Florian Langmann came to our attention. The German finding aces no less than three times and then sucking out on Jake Cody versus . Cody was out and Langmann was up to 85,000 chips.
We lost Melanie Weisner, Jean-Robert Bellande and Andy Frankenberger at one end of the counts and Christopher Polzin (127,000), Hendrik Latze (120,000), Jordan Young (119,500) & Steve Gross (100,000) emerged at the right end.
A few levels on and it started to turn into the AE Jones show. Aaron Jones motoring over the 200,000 mark and he was totally dominant on his table. Then Jeff Manza hit a set of sevens in a three-way pot to go neck and neck with Jones just moments before Jones was physically neck and neck with him (they played out the last twenty minutes side by side). Then finally, Manza caught Langmann bluffing, and overtook Jones towards the last few hands of the night.
Other notables through to Day 2 include Liv Boeree, Eugene Katchalov, Bertrand Grospellier, Roberto Romanello, Jason Mercier, Kyle Weir and 2006 WSOP bracelet holder Paul Kobel with 12,500 chips!
Day 2 will resume in the Amazon room at 13:00 PM and you can join us at PokerNews for all the action.