It seems as though I have to look over shoulder as Kirk Morrison has just returned from the feature table with the following chipcounts:
Marco Traniello = 35,000
Phil Hellmuth = 36,000
Maria Maceiras = 11,000
Sheesh, he wins millions at the table and now he's after my job. I think I'm going to have to warn him off. Either that or get rid of him by shouting 'free bar'.
Robert Mizrachi, playing on Day 1 of the £2,500 H.O.R.S.E. event
THE FIFTY-- The result of a pre-flop raising war between Jan Sorensen and Robert Mizrachi was the latter pushing in his remaining 7,500 in chips and getting a quick call. Mizrachi turned over and had run smack into Sorensen's . on the board, and Mizrachi made an early night of it.
Action has slowed down a bit this afternoon downstairs in the poker room. Barry Greenstein is minding his time while thumbing through a copy of Bluff Magazine. On another table, Patrick Bruel is living the high life as one of the many lovely mid-drift exposing masseuses is giving him a full head massage.
From our working station, we can see through the window into the Team Betfair lounge, and at the moment they are hard at work. One guy is multi-tabling 4 tables in the BetFair Online Poker Room, while his neighbour is playing some form or real time role playing game.
Snoopy and I have a prop bet going, as to who will give up first (the loser buys dinner). Snoopy likes the multi-tabler, claiming "He is only playing small and his bankroll can handle the swings", whereas my money is riding on the Role Player as his screen is chaotic and he seems in the zone.
It looks like the declining pace of action is not just boring for the players.......
Kaibuxxe ponders...
Nikolaus [Removed:552], who had been down to 10,000, up to almost 30,000 and back under 10,000 -- all in a matter of a couple hours -- is out of the tournament, Erik Seidel's A-K getting there against [Removed:552].
Minieri - Raising Machine
THE SPORTSMAN -- Francisco Lopez may have overtaken his neighbour Dario Minieri in chips, but the super-aggressive young Italian is still merrily raising almost every hand preflop. It backfired a minute ago when Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott limped in early position, along with Richard Collier, and when Minieri made it 1,600 to go, he faced Dave moving in for a further 7,600. It actually took longer for Collier to pass than Minieri, but there he was, raising the next hand, undaunted but with a much-reduced stack (13,600).
The rest of that table looks like:
Terry Cook -- 39,200
Humberto Brenes -- 34,000
Jonas Eriksen -- 17,250
Richard Collier -- 25,200
Cristiano Blanco -- 18,650
Devilfish -- 10,825
Passing through the floor, Dean Sanders asked me what the average stack was. In my experience, it's only people who are ahead of it who ever ask this question, to see by how much. Well, the average here at the Sportsman is now 28K, and Sanders is in comfortable shape with 48,600.
Phil Hellmuth
We got the chance to chat with Phil Hellmuth on first break from his Day One of the Main Event. Phil told us about his day yesterday, in which he did some of the typical touristy things around town.
Durr takes a cooler
Online whiz-kid Tom "Durr" Dwan has seen his stack go south after running aces into kings.
The lucky chappy was British amateur Ian Munns, his final all-in being called instantly by Durr, whose excitement soon turned to despair when he spotted his opponent's hand.
An unproductive later and Munns was a rich man, scooping up a 50k pot and leaving his American opponent with a depleted stack of 27k.
E-Dog
We ran into Erick Lindgren before start time today and he had literally just got off the plane. His good friend Bill Edler had just won the WPT event at Biloxi, and Erick had to leave when it was three-handed, so I informed him that Bill had won (to which a flurry of high-fiving commenced) and then showed Erick where to try to get his day changed to Day Two. While the process was getting taken care of, Erick made a snap decision that he would play today after all, and is in the field today with just above his starting chips.
We grabbed him on first break to chat about all of that stuff.
and had run smack into Sorensen's 
. 
on the board, and Mizrachi made an early night of it.
but swiftly being shown 
later and Munns was a rich man, scooping up a 50k pot and leaving his American opponent with a depleted stack of 27k.
