World Poker Tour Super High Roller Day 1: Bonomo Takes Charge
For the first time ever, the World Poker Tour held a massive $100,000 Super High Roller event at the WPT World Championships. On Wednesday, Day 1 of this event, 29 players came out strong for the six-figure buy-in. At the end of the first ten levels, Justin Bonomo leads the way with 1.837 million in chips.
As expected, the field in this event was nothing but high rollers and elite players. Included in the group that came out to play were Daniel Cates, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Tom Marchese, Ashton Griffin, Justin Smith, Dan Shak, Tony G, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren and Erik Seidel. Notice we didn’t mention Phil Ivey. Well, that’s because he didn’t play, which leaves us wondering what he’s waiting for and where he is. Will he come out for the World Series of Poker in a couple of weeks? Will he continue to stay away from the felt? Only time will tell.
Out of those who did show up, a good many hit the rail. Phil Galfond was eliminated by Negreanu while Tony G was busted by Vivek Rajkumar. On the G’s elimination, he got it all in preflop with the second best hand holding A♥Q♠. Rajkumar held A♣K♠. The board ran out A♦8♣2♣2♦5♥, which marked the end of the line for Tony G.
Rajkumar went on to eliminate Marchese, as well, but this time he had to do it coming from behind instead of starting with the best hand. Marchese was all-in preflop with the 10♣10♦ and dominating the A♠10♥ for Rajkumar. Not many can run like Vivek, though — the board ran out 9♦8♥4♦3♦A♣ to give him a winning pair of aces on the river.
The chip leader, Bonomo, was able to double fairly early on versus Masa Kagawa and work his way into the chip lead from there. Going into the dinner break, Bonomo held the chip lead and never gave it up. In the last level of the night, Bonomo used some aggression to increase his lead in the following hand.
According to the WPT Live Update Team, Gabe Kaplan raised to 22,000 with the blinds 4,000/8,000 with a 1,000 ante. Bonomo three-bet to 80,000 on the button and John Morgan called from the big blind. Kaplan also called and allowed the flop of 10♠8♦4♥ to be seen three ways. Action checked to Bonomo and he bet 120,000. Both of his opponents folded and Bonomo scooped the pot to move to approximately two million in chips at the time.
Top 5 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Justin Bonomo | 1,837,000 |
| 2 | Vivek Rajkumar | 1,628,000 |
| 3 | Erick Lindgren | 1,607,000 |
| 4 | John Morgan | 1,009,000 |
| 5 | Randy Dorfman | 968,000 |
A $2.802 million prize pool was created and first place will take home just shy of $1.1 million. The top five places will be paid out and as it stands moving into Day 2, 17 players remain. Be sure to check back right here at PokerNews for the recap of the day’s action.
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