Day 1 Ends with Wittock and Friedman Out in Front; Jerry Buss Honored
Day 1 of Event #23: $2,500 Seven-Card Stud has come to a close. A small, but stout field of 246 competitors took to the felt today, and it was Kenn Wittock who proved to be the player soaring the highest at day's end. He finished with 48,900. Adam Friedman, who won the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo event last year, bagged up 48,300 in chips and is right there with him.
Following not too far behind on Friedman's heels are Freddie Ellis, winner of the $10,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud in 2009, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, winner of the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud Championship in 2011, Rex Clinkscales and Mike Leah. Outside of that group of players, Gary Benson, David Chiu, Greg Raymer, Daniel Negreanu, David Bach, Bill Chen, Andrey Zaichenko and Cyndy Violette.
On the flip side of the coin, Jason Mercier, Phil Ivey, Sam Grizzle, Joe Cassidy, David "Bakes" Baker and Barry Greenstein were all eliminated.
While some great poker was played today, much of the news came from just before play. The World Series of Poker honored the late and great Dr. Jerry Buss with a few special words from WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel and poker pro Chad Brown. Then, an extremely special "shuffle up and deal" announcement was given via video by none other than Kobe Bryant to kick things off. A special framed photo of Buss was placed behind an honorary stack next to Ivey's seat to begin the day, and there were a lot of warm feelings in the room as the players exchanged stories throughout the day about Buss and his love for the game of poker.
With just over 100 players remaining, the action will resume on Thursday at 2 p.m. local Las Vegas time. Be sure to head right back here to PokerNews for all the live coverage.
For now, we'll leave you with Kobe Bryant's "Shuffle Up and Deal" to begin the day today, as well as some words of tribute for the late Dr. Jerry Buss: