Final Table Interview: Chip Leader Corey Emery
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The overwhelming majority of poker dealers harbor dreams of turning the tables one day, moving from the box to the battleground and mixing it up against the players they pitch cards to for a living. In 2010 Corey Emery did just that, making the journey from his home turf at the Player’s Club Casino in Ventura, California to Sin City to compete in his first World Series of Poker.
And he’s glad he did, after a deep run and 33rd place finish in the Main Event left him with 255,242 white chip tokes to take home. According to Emery, he’s come back every year since, and while his Main Event exploits have been understandably difficult to replicate, he has made the Casino Employee’s event his new stomping grounds.
Emery emerged as the chip leader after Day 1 of the WSOP’s debut event yesterday, and after a long day on the felt here today, he’s managed to turn the trick yet again. With 500,000 chips on the dot entering the official final table, Emery is the leader by about 110,000 – with his good friend and fellow Player’s Club Casino dealer John Taylor trailing close behind. We caught up with Emery as he made his way to a well-deserved dinner break to learn a little more about the man who very well may become the first gold bracelet winner of the young summer.
PokerNews: Is this your first WSOP event or do you come and play the Casino Employee’s event regularly?
Emery: This is my second casino event, but I’ve played other events before.
PokerNews: What brought you to the Rio to take a shot this summer, have you been playing well lately, or just here on a lark?
Well, I’ve been coming out here for a while, and I did pretty well in 2010, so I’ve always come for these events since then. Nothing better than the World Series, right?
PokerNews: Truer words have never been spoken… tell me about your poker experience aside from dealing, do you prefer tournaments back home or cash?
I play cash mostly, at home and at the Player’s Casino. I started when I was 16, right around 11 years ago when Moneymaker won. Started playing with basketball teammates and it just went from there.
PokerNews: How about the key hands from yesterday that put you in position to make the first WSOP final table of the summer?
Well, the last hand of the night I turned a straight and a guy called my all-in shove with second pair. So, that kind of put sixty thousand up there for me.
PokerNews: That hand propelled you to the chip lead entering Day 2, so how have things gone today? Has the structure allowed you to use those chips effectively?
I mean, it’s probably short right now, like you know, average stack is like twenty-five bigs, twenty bigs. So there’s going to be a lot of gambling.
PokerNews: Having just arrived at the pinnacle every poker player hopes to reach in their career, is there anybody at home you’d like to share a little celebration with?
Yeah, I’d like to say hi to my fiancé Stephanie, definitely.
turn. A meaningless 
completed the board and the players will now get moved to the feature table. We then likely have a dinner break and keep you up to date as soon as we know more. There will be 37:34 minutes left to be played in level 17 when we continue.
and Roland Reparejo who had him dominated with the 
.
flop he changed his mind and didn't want to see a three or eight. Neither the 
turn nor the 
river saw Henderson improve and we are down to ten players.
gave Taylor an open-ended straight draw.
turn paired Taylor and now he just needed to fade an ace to eliminate Graunstadt. The 
. He had reason to be alarmed as Sobczak had 
.
. No ace to the rescue and after a quick first bump with Cameron Tullis, Bonilla went to pick up his winnings.
and Pearson wished the table good luck as he took his leave.
flop, the rail of the last remaining woman in the field fell silent. On the 
turn it was all over and the 
completed the board.
