Chris Moorman Dominates First Day of Ante Only Event
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Day 1 of Event #45: $1,500 Ante Only tournament has come to an end. After 939 entered last year’s inaugural Ante Only tournament, 678 players started the this year, generating a prize pool of $915,300. There would be 72 players to enjoy those riches with each guaranteed $2,581. Only one player could win the top prize and the gold bracelet. That top prize equated to $201,399.
In this very interesting format players were given a starting stack of 4,500 in chips. There were no blinds but only antes. Each player started the day having to ante 25 chips each. By the end of the day they were anteing 400 each. This created a lot of action and many multi-way pots. Some people could not handle or figure out the structure but others handled it as a way to dominate their competition.
One player to have no troubles with this Ante Only format was the chip leader Chris Moorman. He found every opportunity to gain many chips from his opponents. At the end of the day he took his starting stack of 4,500 and turned it into a monster stack of 143,900. His next closet competitor Sam Panzica had 118,000. Other notables who stayed on top of the counts were Aaron Massey (99,200), Gabriel Nassif (89,500), Allen Cunningham (83,400), and David Vamplew (78,000).
Many players had troubles figuring out the ebbs and flows of the ante structure. Those that did not make it to day 2 were Jennifer Tilly, Phil Hellmuth, Rex Clinkscales, Vince Van Patten, Jake Schwartz, Brent Hanks, and defending champion Greg Hobson. Hobson was eliminated early when he got his flush draw in three ways but did not catch.
An interesting scenario occurred in the last ten minutes of play. The staff told the dealers to deal three more hands and then bag up for the night. The tournament only needed to eliminate five players to reach the bubble at that time. Within three hands four players were eliminated and the bubble was upon the event. The staff decided to play through the bubble and went hand for hand. Robert Tepper assumed after losing set over set that he was the bubble boy. But after calculating the chips the tournament discovered Tepper had actually been the 72nd place finisher. That meant he got to receive $2,581.
The other 71 players will come back tomorrow at 1:00 pm PST. All the players have reached the money. They will play 10 levels or until a final table has been reached. Stay tuned to PokerNews to find out which players will make the final table in this second installment of the Ante Only Event.