2014 WSOP Day 25: Negreanu, Seidel Fall in $10K Heads-Up; More Dealer's Choice Craziness

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Jun 21, 2014 8 min read

No bracelets were awarded on Day 25 of the 2014 World Series of Poker, meaning Saturday's Day 26 is setting up to be a busy one at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.

The only event scheduled to play down to a winner on Friday was Event #39: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em, but the day ended with three players still alive. Meanwhile, the prestigious Event #40: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship is left with only two remaining, and only nine players survived Day 2 of the inaugural $1,500 Six-Handed Dealer’s Choice Event.

Here’s a rundown of how things went in all five of the events that were in action on Friday.

Event #39: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em

At the start of what was supposed to be the final day of Event #39, 26 players returned at 1 p.m. to play ten one-hour levels of poker or until a winner was determined. The day ended with three hopefuls set to return for an unscheduled Day 4 on Saturday.

Jake Schindler, Ryan Jaconetti and Sean Dempsey are the only three remaining from a field of 992. Schindler holds a slight lead over Jaconetti but only after Jaconetti doubled through Schindler on the final hand of the night with pocket aces.

Here's how the stacks will look when play recommences:

Among the players who bowed out early at the final table were well known pros Layne Flack (7th) and Nam Le (6th), as well as circuit regulars Ryan Laplante (5th) and Ryan Olisar (4th).

The final three will return at 3 p.m. PDT on Saturday. Stay tuned to PokerNews for live coverage of Day 4, as well as a full final table recap when the day comes to a close.

Event #40: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship

After seven rounds of heads-up no-limit hold'em in two days, only two players remain in contention for the gold bracelet and a first-place prize of $335,553 in the prestigious $10,000 Heads-up Championship. Sam Stein will face Davide Suriano, with Stein looking to capture his second bracelet while Suriano attempts to bring home his first.

Both finalists beat a series of top professionals in order to reach the finals as Suriano started out by beating Scott Seiver followed by Daniel Cates, who he busted after spiking a jack when his jacks ended up all in versus Cates' kings. On Friday Suriano faced Serkan Kurnaz and after a two-hour battle, the longest of the round, the Italian secured himself a spot among the final eight.

Heads-up specialist Ankush Mandavia was his next opponent and Suriano held the lead for almost the entire match before closing things out with king-seven versus king-three. In the semifinal Suriano faced yet another heads-up phenom, but Daniel Colman also proved to be no match for the aggressive Italian.

Stein faced Bryn Kenney during his second-round match and hit an ace while holding ace-queen against Kenney's kings to advance. The next two players Stein faced were among Britain's elite, but both Sam Trickett and Max Silver fell short of advancing.

With just eight players remaining Stein faced Scott Baumstein, who ran into Stein's kings to surrender the lead and the busted to Stein's pocket queens. In the semifinal match Stein trailed Scott Davies for quite some time, but a huge cooler turned things around. In a set-over-set situation Stein grabbed the lead, and while Davies doubled back up once, he was unable to come back.

Here is a complete look at their respective roads to the championship match:

Also falling on Day 2 were Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel and Jason Koon. Negreanu fell to Tommy Chen in the Round of 16 when his K♥9♥ finished second best to Chen's A♠9♠ on a 9♣5♠3♠ flop. Negreanu has now cashed five times this summer for a total of $238,894 in earnings, including a runner-up finish to Paul Volpe in the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship.

The final match of this year's $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship will start at 1:00 p.m. local time on Saturday, and PokerNews.com will be right there to bring hand-for-hand coverage.

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Event #41: $1,500 Six-Handed Dealer’s Choice

After 10 levels of play on Day 2, Robert Mizrachi has pole position in the race to claim the first-ever World Series of Poker dealer's choice bracelet in Event #41. Mizrachi's lengthy resume sports nearly $5 million in cashes, but he's seeking just his second bracelet. He bagged 390,500 to end the night.

Plenty of other notables navigated a 419-player field to find themselves among the final 10. Two-time bracelet winner Daniel Idema sits in third with 260,000, while fellow bracelet winners Bill Chen (185,000), former WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela (153,000), Marco Johnson (87,000), and Jen Harman (60,500) remain in contention. Additionally, Melissa Burr (55,500) seeks a third final table of the 2014 WSOP, as she already notched a fifth and an eighth in previous events. She'll have to overcome being the shortest remaining stack if she hopes to do so.

After a wild Day 1 which saw Brandon Cantu and Jesse Martin get into a huge spat, more controversy took place on Day 2. Cantu was involved once again, accusing another player of an angle shot, and then a hand involving Bill Chen provided something we've never seen before at the WSOP.

Playing No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw, Senovio Ramirez was all in and drawing one against Bill Chen, who flipped over J♣9♠7♣6♣4♦. Ramirez turned over 9♥8♣7♠3♥ and squeezed out his card: Q♠, meaning Chen's jack-low was good.

Ramirez then insisted the Q♠ was the card he had thrown away, resulting in the floor being called. After checking the video tapes, floor staff determined that Ramirez did indeed receive the same card back after the draw and that the hand needed to be reconstructed and Ramirez would receive the top card off of a newly shuffled deck.

After it took several minutes for players to recall what they were holding, the cards were recalled and each player's original hands were picked out and placed on the felt.

Chen: J♣9♣7♦6♣4♦
Ramirez: 9♥8♣7♠3♣

Despite shouts from some players that their discarded cards were now in the deck, the ruling stood. The deck was shuffled with the Q♠ left out. Ramirez then received the top card from the deck. The dealer dealt the card without sweat. It was the 8♦, pairing Ramirez and eliminating him from play.

_{For more on this hand, check out the video below}

Play will resume at 2 p.m. on Saturday to see which player will make history by claiming the first ever dealer's choice bracelet. Be sure to follow our live updates from start to finish.

Event #42: $5,000 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha

A crowd of 452 players made their way to the Brasilia Room today for the $5,000 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha event. After 10 hour-long levels were completed only 96 of them had chips that needed bagging and tagging.

Some of those 96 survivors bagged up only a few big blinds, while others had bags filled with chips heading into Day 2.

One such big stack, the biggest stack in the room in fact, belongs to Belgium's Davidi Kitai who turned his 15,000 starting stack into a colossal pile worth 308,300. Kitai won his third WSOP bracelet a couple of weeks ago and now looks set to make a run for a fourth if his Day 1 form is anything to go by.

Other players with healthy stacks at the end of the day were Brandon Crawford (202,900), recent bracelet winner Kory Kilpatrick (202,000), Brant Hale (189,200) and Mike Gorodinsky (186,600).

As you would expect from a tournament costs the princely sum of $5,000 to enter, plenty of notable players punched their ticket for Day 2.

Players such as Brian Rast (147,900), Mike Watson (135,700), Michael Mizrachi (119,200), Scotty Nguyen (108,500), David "Bakes" Baker (108,200), Ashton Griffin (103,400), Phil Galfond (72,100), JC Tran (66,000), Jason Mercier (62,900), Calvin Anderson (48,900) and Sorel Mizzi (44,300) were a small but stellar selection of top talent to look out for when the tournament resumes.

Day 2 will commence at 1:00 p.m. local time on Saturday and the plan is to play 10 hour-long levels and whittle the field down as close to the final table of six as possible. While the final table is unlikely to be reached, the money places will be as they start at 48th place.

Keep your browsers locked to PokerNews to keep up-to-date with all of the action, as it happens, from this superb action-packed tournament.

Event #43: $1,500 Limit Hold’em

With only two limit hold'em tournaments on the 2014 WSOP schedule, it wasn't a surprise to see a rather large turnout of 657 entrants come out for Event #43: $1,500 Limit Hold'em. When play concluded at nearly 3 a.m. local time it was Paul Mannoni who was sitting atop the leader board with 60,900 in chips. It's a tightly packed bunch at the top with Matthew Davenport (58,700), Rob O'Shea (57,000), and Michael Lynn (55,400) all within striking distance of Mannoni.

Other notables among the 118 that survived included Berry Johnston (41,900), Jeff Lisandro (30,900), Dan Kelly (25,500), Mike Leah (12,700), Antonio Esfandiari (11,600), Brandon Shack-Harris (39,400), Terrence Chan (24,400), David Chiu (12,600), and Daniel Negreanu (12,600). Negreanu was moderately disappointed with his end-of-day performance but promised on Twitter to run it up when play resumes on Saturday.

The players will return at 2 p.m. local time for 10 more levels. They are paying 72 places so the money bubble should be reached in the early evening sometime. Tune into PokerNews to find out who makes it deep and who falls short of the money!

On Tap

Six events will be in action Saturday at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Event #39 will extend to a fourth day and play down to a winner, while champions are also scheduled to be crowned in Event #40 and Event #41.Event #42: $5,000 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha and Event #43: $1,500 Limit Hold’em — will push into Day 2, and one new event — a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em — will get underway at noon.

Here’s the full schedule of bracelet events for Saturday (all times PDT):

• 12:00 p.m. — Event #44: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em (Day 1 of 3)
• 1:00 p.m. — Event #42: $5,000 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha (Day 2 of 3)
• 1:00 p.m. — Event #40: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship (Day 3 of 3)
• 1:00 p.m. — Event #41: $1,500 Six-Handed Dealer’s Choice (Day 3 of 3)
• 2:00 p.m. — Event #43: $1,500 Limit Hold’em (Day 2 of 3)
• 3:00 p.m. — Event #39: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em (Day 4 of 4)

Video of the Day

The Dealer's Choice event has been nothing short of entertaining. Bill Chen saw something he had never seen before at his table on Day 2. He explains to Sarah Grant:

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