Two tournaments took to the floor of the Rio at the 2014 World Series of Poker for their Day One action on Friday. The No Limit Hold’em Shootout worked down to the 120 players who would earn a payday from the event as a nice field turned out for Seven Card Razz, with Phil Hellmuth once again making noise at the WSOP. With these tournaments slated for Day Two on Saturday, one of the most highly anticipated tournaments of the 2014 WSOP will also begin.
Event #6 – $1500 No Limit Hold’em Shootout – Day One
948 players would show up to take on Event #6 and its Shootout format, considered one of the easier paths to a WSOP bracelet. The format – where a player has to defeat his table to move on in the tournament – is considered easier because instead of having to vanquish a large field, a player can concentrate on just his table’s actions instead of watching the leaderboard to find out how many chips the leader has. Divvying the field up into 120 tables, the contenders for the Shootout crown headed off to what would surprisingly be a short day of play.
With the smaller buy-in, pros and amateurs bumped elbows with each other as they attempted to earn one of those coveted slots to the money for Saturday’s action. Such names as Eugene Katchalov, Mike Matusow, Shannon Shorr, Greg Merson, David Vamplew, Jordan Cristos, Grant Hinkle and Jan Christoph Von Halle were all able to bypass their opponents on the way to the 120 survivors, while Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Stephen Chidwick, Scott Seiver and Jake Cody were unable to make their way to Day Two.
Even though it is a shootout and all the players should have even numbers of chips, the creative table arrangements allowed for some players with a full table to take an advantage over those who were short a player. Thus, there is a bit of disparity between chip counts as Scott Vener technically holds the lead heading to Saturday’s play.
1. Scott Vener, 37,025
2. Jonathan Clancy, 36,875
3. Benjamin Reason, 36,500
4. Isaac Baron, 36,100
5. Josh Pollock, 36,050
(tie) Jesse Wilke, 36,050
7. Eugene Katchalov, 36,025
(tie) Ismail Abousharkh, 36,025
(tie) Paul Balzano, 36,025
(tie) Joseph McKeehen, 36,025
Everyone coming back for today’s action will be the recipient of at least $4411, but all eyes are glued to making it to the final 12, where the pay scale jumps up to $14,615. When the champion is determined on Sunday, that fortunate individual will take down $259,211 and the WSOP bracelet.
Event #7 – $1500 Seven Card Razz – Day One
Coming as a pleasant surprise to WSOP officials, 352 players flocked to the $1500 Seven Card Razz event, not one of the more popular games in this No Limit Hold’em-centric universe that poker has become. Also coming as a pleasant surprise is the potential for one of poker’s living legends to pick up his second Seven Card Razz title in three years.
After unceremoniously busting out of the Shootout event, 13-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth leapt into the fray for Razz. In 2012, ‘The Poker Brat’ earned his twelfth WSOP bracelet in defeating Don Zewin for the crown (as Hellmuth lets everyone know, he would go on to take #13 later in the year at the WSOP Europe Championship Event). Hellmuth fared much better in this tournament, making it through to the end of the day sitting on a respectable 39,700 in chips in his pursuit of Bracelet #14.
Some of the players not joining Hellmuth in the hunt for Razz gold include some of the biggest names in the game. Phil Ivey late-registered for the event but was summarily sent home by Phil Laak; Daniel Negreanu’s frustrations with the first week of the WSOP continued as he now sits 0-for the series as far as cashes, and one of the WSOP first week success stories, Event #3 bracelet winner Brandon Shack-Harris, couldn’t convert his success in Pot Limit Omaha to the Razz felt.
When the 75 remaining players come back this afternoon to the Rio, they will be looking to catch up to Fabio DeFrancesco, who bagged a sizeable 66,700 to take the Day One chip lead:
1. Fabio DeFrancesco, 66,700
2. Jordan Siegel, 61,100
3. Matt Waxman, 42,300
4. Jared Koppel, 41,700
5. Kevin Iacofano, 40,400
6. Phil Hellmuth, 39,700
7. Greg Pappas, 39,400
8. Amir Namatinia, 38,400
9. Craig Chait, 37,200
10. Brad Albrinck, 34,700
Other notable names in the hunt include Bill Chen (31,100), Ted Forrest (30,200) and Huck Seed (28,000).
The Day Two battles will be a long one also (play on Day One didn’t wrap up until the wee hours of Saturday morning), but the rewards will be worth it. A WSOP bracelet and $121,196 awaits the champion that will be crowned on Sunday.
STARTING TODAY
The WSOP has been waiting with bated breath for Saturday’s start to the “Millionaire Maker,” Event #8 on the WSOP calendar. After its debut in 2013, in which 6343 entries were submitted in the largest non-Championship Event field in WSOP history, WSOP staff had to be excited to run the tournament again this year. At this point, it does appear that we are on our way to another record-breaking effort.
The format of the “Millionaire Maker” is simple: players can enter the first flight (which began at 11AM this morning in Las Vegas) and, should they be eliminated before the 5PM second flight takes off, can reenter the tournament. According to the WSOP website, the first flight has already generated 5154 players, which should easily allow the “Millionaire Maker” to shatter the record set last year for the tournament and easily pass the guaranteed $1 million first place prize for the eventual champion even before Flight 2 takes off a few hours from now.
