Our current chip leader is John Coleman and he kindly wrote down his name after we asked for it when noticing the big stack. Some time earlier he had already doubled up for 15,925 with on a board and it wasn't the only time he had pocket aces. Apparently that was four times already in the nine levels so far.
Donna Rosenthal is up to 53,000 after knocking out an opponent when her pocket nines held up in a coin flip versus . With more than 50,000 in chips she is one of the biggest stacks right now.
Simon Trumper was telling us the story of a few hands ago where he doubled up. He had raised on the button and folded to a shove from the small blind. On the next hand it was folded to him in the small blind and before he looked at his cards he warned that if it happened again he’d be calling.
He then looked down at and completed. The big blind moved all in and Trumper instantly called to see he was up against and held to double.
While we were at the table there were a few limpers and Trumper limped along. The big blind moved in for only 1,350 and with a couple of callers Trumper moved in over the top successfully isolating the all in big blind player.
Success of sorts as the big blind had woken up with and Trumper had .
No matter, the cards ran out and Trumper eliminated his man and added another 6,000 to his stack.
With a limp for 400 in first position the action was on Ron Blount. He made it 4,000 by throwing out four yellow T1000 chips.
“That’s the wrong colour!” the limper said of the raise with the highest denomination chips in plays which were clearly on display at the front of his stack.
“I always thought it was the ones out from you had to play.” Blount chuckled.
It folded round to the small blind and the laughter stopped as she moved all in. Bount asked for a count and the stack was counted down, eventually tallying a total bet of 14,300.
Blount thought about it for a while before announcing to the all in player, “No, I’m going to let that one go.”
She turned over and Blount received a fist bump from the limper.
Tony Hoskins from Kansas City has recently been moved to Table 2 in Brasilia Room and is currently sitting pretty on a stack of 47,000 chips, which is nearly 80 big blinds going into this level.
That’s well above the average of 14,500 at this stage and his confident demeanor at the table shows he has the patience to pick his spots and apply pressure to the smaller stacks at the right time.
Asked how he was enjoying the tournament he grinned and replied, “Great time, good people.”
If he managed to win big at the tournament he promised to buy his good buddy Michael Jensen a brand new Cadillac. Although we may have misheard that last bit.
A total of eleven levels will be played on today's Day 1 of the Seniors Event of the WSOP 2014. After the end of level nine, a short break will take place to color up the green T25 chips and two more levels are scheduled afterwards.
Let's have ourselves another 20 minutes off, level eight has come to an end. According to the screens there are less than 1,000 players left, 982 to be exact.