The partypoker Premier League VII kicked off its festivities yesterday afternoon and, if the rest of the matches are as hotly contested as the opener, then it should be an all-out fight for the championship.
Heat 1 of the six-heat opening process featured eight players that mixed outstanding live tournament success with excellence in the online arena. There wasn’t a weak spot anywhere as Jeff Gross, Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates, Sorel Mizzi, Jason Koon, Brian Rast, Dan Colman and Scott Seiver stepped to the felt and, over the first 30 hands, the players seemed to be comfortable shifting chips between each other. Gross would change this as the table approached the 40 hand mark, taking two hands back to back against Seiver and Mizzi to crack the 400K chip barrier to take the lead.
Seiver would take another hit to his stack after a clash with Esfandiari left him short stacked. The twosome would see a 3-K-3-K-J board and, with over 200K in chips in the pot by the river, Esfandiari slid out another bet that Seiver called. Esfandiari showed down a K-10 for a turned full house while Seiver slid his pocket Queens into the muck, dropping to the bottom of the leaderboard while Esfandiari neared 500K in chips.
Gross would end the evening for Seiver when his pocket Jacks were able to stand up to Seiver’s A-Q on Hand 50 of Heat 1. It would take another 25 hands before Rast, who had difficulty gaining any traction throughout the run of the table, got his chips in with pocket tens against Esfandiari’s Q-J. The flop immediately brought Esfandiari gold, coming down 2-7-J, and the running Queens to finish out the board unnecessarily improved him to a full house. With the Rast elimination, Esfandiari was able to put some distance between him and Gross as the remaining players cracked the century mark in hands.
After a break following Hand 127, the eliminations came quickly compared to the early action. Koon, Esfandiari (surprisingly) and Mizzi would all take their walk from the tables as Gross, Cates and Colman battled it out for supremacy. Gross was the first one to seize an advantage, doubling up through Colman to take over the chip lead on Hand 157 after his K-J spiked a Jack on the flop to eclipse Colman’s pocket sixes. A hand later, however, Cates would take some of those chips from Gross after his K-Q was able to outrun Gross’ A-8 on a K-8-5-2-9 board.
The three pros remaining played for two dozen hands before a major misstep occurred to set up the heads up action. Cates would push all in and, after glancing at his cards and seeing pocket Jacks, Colman made the call to put Cates at risk. Cates could only unveil a J-4 for the attempted steal and, once the board ran out with no surprises, Cates was headed to the rail while Colman held a slight lead over Gross.
Colman and Gross would spend over 50 hands vying for the Heat 1 victory, with Gross slowly cutting chips from Colman’s stack to take over the lead. Colman, for his part, didn’t go quietly into the Canadian night, fighting back in what was turning out to be one of the longest battles in Premier League history. On Hand 236, Gross would move all in and Colman decided to stake his tournament life on a K♦ 3♦. Gross was alive with his 9-8 off suit, but he fell further behind on a 10♣ 4♥ 6♦ flop. Lightning struck on the turn in the form of an 8♦, pushing Gross into the lead but opening up a flush redraw (plus an over card) for Colman. Those redraws failed to come home on the 2♥ river, sending Gross to the Heat 1 victory and an early lead in the Premier League.
1. Jeff Gross – 14 points
2. Dan Colman – 11 points
3. Dan Cates – 9 points
4. Sorel Mizzi – 7 points
5. Antonio Esfandiari – 5 points
6. Jason Koon – 3 points
7. Brian Rast – 1 point
8. Scott Seiver – 0 points
Heat 2 this afternoon will see four of the competitors come back for the second of the four matches they are scheduled to play. Cates, Koon, Rast and Seiver will have a second opportunity to earn points, while Jonathan Duhamel, defending Premier League champion Dan Shak, Phil Laak and Vanessa Selbst will step up for their first heat. Both Gross and Colman will be back on Saturday during Heat 3 to attempt to add some more points to their Heat 1 totals.
The Premier League VII will play out into next week, with the top four point earners moving on to the Championship Table. The next four spots in the point rankings (5th-8th) will battle it out in a series of best-of-three heads up matches to determine two more players at the Championship Table. The six-handed Championship Table will then play out later next week, with the eventual champion cutting away $400,000 from the $1.5 million prize pool.
