Today saw the start of the last non-flop games at the WSOP, as Day 1 of Event #59 $2,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball completed. After eight levels of drawing and standing pat, Juijen Chang leads the way with a massive stack of 66,000. The only player within 20,000 of him is none other then Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, who ended the night with 58,300 despite sitting out the last level of the night.
282 players ponied up the buy in for this event, well above the 228 from last year. Over half of the field was eliminated today, and some of the causalities included Phil Galfond, Greg Raymer, John Juanda, Barry Greenstein, Billy Baxter, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, and Alex Kravchenko.
It wasn't all bad news for the notables, as a slew of them made it through the day. Amongst those still alive are David “ODB” Baker (46,900), Gavin Smith (36,900), Daniel Negreanu (24,400), Mike Leah (23,000), Scott Seiver (18,900) and 2013 WSOP bracelet winners Marco Johnson (40,000), Tom Schneider (32,300), David Chiu (28,500), Daniel Idema (21,500), Vladimir Shchemelev (13,700), and Jesse Martin (12,800).
The 88 surviving players will return tomorrow at 2 p.m. local time to play ten more levels of triple draw poker. The plan is to play ten levels, or until a final table has been reached: whichever comes first. As always, Pokernews.com will be here with all of your up to date action. Thanks for tuning in, and good night from Las Vegas!
We came upon a three-way hand involving Mike Leah (small blind), David "Bakes" Baker (cutoff), and Bill Chen (button). They'd reached the second draw, with Leah and Baker each taking one card and Chen standing pat.
Ensuing betting ended with Chen contemplating whether or not to call two bets or perhaps raise all in with the little bit more he had left. Chen opted to call, leaving himself just 150 chips behind, then watched with some dismay as on the third draw Leah was now standing pat.
Baker took one card, then Chen decided to break his hand and draw one as well. Leah bet, Baker called, and after Chen called with his last chips, Leah quickly turned over a wheel — .
Baker mucked, then Chen showed he'd drawn to a number three — .
"Well, I played it perfectly," said Chen grinning. "I broke an !"
Still shaking his head, Chen wished Leah and the others good luck and departed. Meanwhile, Leah is now challenging for the early chip lead.
Welcome to Event #59: $2,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, one of the last preliminary bracelet events on the 2013 WSOP schedule. We'll be seeing no flops in this one, but rather lots of discards and draws, pat and broken hands, and small and big bets as we discover together over the next three days who will be the next WSOP bracelet winner.
Last year's tourney ended with a dramatic and lengthy heads-up battle that saw the lead change more than a dozen times between Ohel and runner-up Benjamin Lazer following the bustout of David "ODB" Baker in third. At one point Lazer had built a stack of about 1.6 million while Ohel was down to just over 100,000, but the latter managed to claw all of the way back to earn his first career bracelet.
Whether or not this year's version of "the deuce" produces similar drama remains to be seen. We do, however, expect a similarly-sized tournament with many of poker's elite likely taking a shot at the last draw event on the schedule. Play begins at 5 p.m. local time, with the schedule calling for eight one-hour levels to play out tonight. Be sure to return here to PokerNews then for start-to-finish coverage of Event #59.
As we await today's initial deals and draws, here's Kristy Arnett with an update of all that's happening currently WSOP-wise at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino:
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