After coming off a highly successful swing on the California coast, the World Poker Tour has set anchor on the opposite side of the country, Florida to be exact. The WPT Jacksonville bestbet Open started on Friday, bringing out a smallish field which should expand greatly on Saturday’s Day 1B.
Even at the start of the tournament, the bestbet tournament floor was crowded with familiar names looking to get their games in shape for the stretch drive to the WPT World Championship. WPT announcer Mike Sexton, Faraz Jaka, Amanda Musumeci, Dylan Wilkerson, Scott Montgomery, Jonathan Little and Marvin Rettenmaier were all in their seats when the call for action came, with Dan Heimiller and Tony Cousineau coming along after a level of action. For one of these players, the end would come sooner than he would expect.
Rettenmaier was active in the first two hours of play, but it wasn’t driving his chip stack upward. He would eventually get his final chips in with a J-8 battling an opponent’s Q-7. The flop was fortuitous for Rettenmaier, coming down 9-8-6, but it just opened up more outs for his foe. The Ace on the turn changed nothing but, when a ten came crushing down the river, Rettenmaier was down but, by the rules of this WPT event (unlimited reentry until Level 5, players on Day 1A can come back for Day 1B), he wasn’t out.
As Rettenmaier pulled out another $3500 for a second bullet, an interesting hand developed between John Racener and Wilkerson. With about 5000 chips in the pot on a Q-8-7-3 flop and turn. Racener would fire out a sizeable 4000 chip bet, only to see Wilkerson pop it up to 10K. Racener three-bet the action to 19K and, following a Wilkerson call, saw a five come on the river. Racener moved all in at this point and Wilkerson almost beat him into the pot with the call, showing a pocket pair of Queens for the flopped set. Racener could only shake his head as he showed pocket fives for the second best flopped set and headed to the rail.
Rettenmaier’s travails would continue as he busted for a second time just prior to the cutoff for reentry. Undaunted, the German would throw up a third bullet for the day (commenting over Twitter “Nobody will manage to fire three with only four levels of registration – oh, did I prove myself wrong!) and he would make the best of that effort. Epitomizing “the third time is the charm,” Rettenmaier would go on to finish the night on the tables in Jacksonville, bagging up 110,300 in chips that was good for a spot in the Top Ten.
Lazaro Hernandez would be the star of the day, though. As the action moved into the evening hours, he slowly ground his way up from 79K in chips. By the time the last hands were dealt for the night, Hernandez had steamrolled his way over 200K in chips and, even though he doubled up an opponent, would still be over that mark as he enters Day 2 play on Sunday.
1. Lazaro Hernandez, 212,200
2. Greg Baumhover, 193,100
3. Jason Mercier, 168,300
4. Mike Arrington, 167,500
5. Jonathan Little, 141,500
6. Dylan Wilkerson, 134,200
7. Michael Palmer, 127,200
8. Shannon Shorr, 118,200
9. Marvin Rettenmaier, 110,300
10. James Calderaro, 102,500
41 players remain from the 111 entries that came in on Friday and the $500,000 guarantee that has been placed on this event should be shattered on Saturday.
The tables at bestbet Jacksonville should be jammed today as players make their drive towards the latest WPT championship. Defending champion Jared Jaffe, Harrison Gimbel, Mohsin Charania, Mukul Pahuja (the current leader on the WPT Player of the Year board), Musumeci and Montgomery will likely be back for a second shot on Day 1B, joined by a host of new faces on the felt. It should be another exciting day of poker play as the WPT bestbet Jacksonville rumbles on in the Sunshine State.
