Today's first flight of the Main Event has drawn 137 runners, including 1 Phil Hellmuth and 0 Lady Gaga impersonators to the felt. That's down just a bit from the 156 who entered Day 1a last year, but it's quite possible the absent players are the ones who were tipped off about Hellmuth's charade and decided to play tomorrow instead.
We've seen less than a handful of eliminations so far, so we'll call it 133 players remaining until the number gets updated on the big board. About 2/3rds of the starting field survived Day 1a last year, so we should finish up tonight with somewhere around 90 players left.
Justin Tazelaar becomes the second player to fall to Bruno Fitoussi, who's responsible for what's amusingly a very high percentage of the bustouts without having the hundreds of thousands you might expect for this. His victims are shortish, but their chips add up, and he's on about 55k at the moment. Tazelaar's final hand was - he threebet Fitoussi preflop, and then after his stack was scrutinised and found to be less than 12k, had to call all-in with it after Fitoussi just set his whole stack across the line putting the pressure back on. He held and didn't have to wait long, hitting one Ace on the flop and another on the turn to create another space at his table.
Pascal LeFrancois raised to 700 from middle position to start off the action on this hand. Scott Fischman called and Alexander Kravchenko also called from the big blind.
The flop came down and action checked around. The turn added the to the board and action checked around the table once again to see the fall on the river. Action checked to LeFrancois and he fired 1,400. Fischman and Kravchenko folded, allowing LeFrancois to chip up to 32,000.
Inaugural champion Annette Obrestad has been knocked out, she had raised UTG with and was called by the big blind, the flop came two spades board and she moved all-in against a check-raise only to find her opponent holding for flopped top two pair which held.
November Niner Michael Mizrachi won't be making the final tables of both WSOP Main Events this year.
After being ground down under 8,000 chips, Mizrachi three-bet shoved after Farzad Bonyadi opened the pot to his right. Bonyadi called with ace-ten, and Mizrachi was behind but drawing live with king-jack.
An ace-high flop put Mizrachi in a hole he could not climb out of, and he has run out of chips. Bonyadi, on the other hand, is doing just fine with about 67,000 chips now.
Interesting developments over on Table Eames/Mattern: a huge bet, a tournament life at risk and a big decision counting John Eames' timebank down... the board was standing with the nine having rounded off this hand. Between 17k and 20k was in the pot already, but the bet being considered (and for at least a minute before and a minute afterwards) was a monstrous 34,000, the full remaining stack of Arnaud Mattern.
The aviator-sporting Frenchman was sitting still, his decision already made, but Eames on the other hand looked just like he was having a silent back-and-forth conversation with an invisible person. He nodded sagely at one point, made conversational hand gestures for a while, and finally, reluctantly, threw his hand away.
Simon Persson opened to 700 from middle position, and action came to Sorel Mizzi. From the cutoff seat, he three-bet to 2,100, and his opponent promptly reraised to 5,700. After a good soak in the think tank, Mizzi moved in for just shy of 30,000, and Persson snap-called with the covering stack. And the dominating hand:
Persson:
Mizzi:
The flop was blank, and a king on the turn left Mizzi drawing dead. The queen on the river just added a little insult on the way out the door, Mizzi's Main Event cut short on Day 1a. Persson has no intentions of leaving, and his stack of 74,000 should keep him around here for a while.
We haven't heard too much from Nick Schulman today, but he's certainly not someone who can be overlooked. Despite his reputation in other games, he's still a dangerous entity at No Limit Hold'em and could definitely mount an assault on this year's Main Event if the cards run away.
After somewhat of an inactive period, Schulman jumped up a gear, cold-four betting raises of 700 and 2,300 to 5,800 from the small blind. The initial raiser folded under the gun, as did Faraz Jaka one seat along.
Schulman is currently hovering around his starting stack with 28,000.
Daniel "Jungleman12" Cates hasn't got off to the best of starts but he just took a small pot off November Niner Fillipo Candio. The latter opened to 800 and Cates immediately 3-bet next to him to 2,100. Candio made the call but then quickly check-folded to a 2,000 bet on the board. Cates showed the with a little grin.
- he threebet Fitoussi preflop, and then after his stack was scrutinised and found to be less than 12k, had to call all-in with it after Fitoussi just set his whole stack across the line putting the pressure back on. He held 
and didn't have to wait long, hitting one Ace on the flop and another on the turn to create another space at his table.
and action checked around. The turn added the 
to the board and action checked around the table once again to see the 
fall on the river. Action checked to LeFrancois and he fired 1,400. Fischman and Kravchenko folded, allowing LeFrancois to chip up to 32,000.
and was called by the big blind, the flop came 
two spades board and she moved all-in against a check-raise only to find her opponent holding 
with the nine having rounded off this hand. Between 17k and 20k was in the pot already, but the bet being considered (and for at least a minute before and a minute afterwards) was a monstrous 34,000, the full remaining stack of Arnaud Mattern.
board. Cates showed the 
with a little grin.
