WSOP What to Watch For: Danzer Racing Ahead in $10K Stud Hi-Low; Bonomo, Savage, Chad Chasing
The poker keeps coming without pause at the 2014 World Series of Poker with five different events in action on Wednesday. As is characteristic at the WSOP, there will be a variety of games being dealt today at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino with no-limit hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, NL deuce-to-seven draw, and seven-card stud hi-low all being spread.
One event — Event #36: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball — will be playing down to a winner today, with Joseph Cheong among the contenders in that one seeking to claim WSOP gold for the first time. Meanwhile other big names continuing their battles for bracelets today include Jeff Madsen, Sam Trickett, and George Danzer, just to name a few.
Also returning to healthy chips in the seven-card stud hi-low event is tournament director Matt Savage, with ESPN commentator Norman Chad likewise coming back in that one to battle further. Inconceivable? Hardly!
Here’s a full rundown of what to watch for in all five events playing out today:
Event #35: $5,000 Eight-Handed No-Limit Hold’em
Just 23 are left from a big starting field of 550 in Event #35: $5,000 Eight-Handed No-Limit Hold’em in which three-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Madsen starts with the chip lead today with a stack of 661,000, with Justin Conley (592,000) and Brian Yoon (587,000) his nearest challengers at the moment. Meanwhile Sam Trickett (currently in seventh position, 456,000), Timo Pfutzenreuter (eighth, 429,000) and Josh Arieh (10th, 385,000) are all also positioned to make a run at the bracelet and $633,341 first prize.
Madsen earned his third bracelet a year ago in a $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event where he also started the third day of play with the chip lead (with 19 remaining). That was Madsen’s first WSOP triumph since 2006 when as a 21-year-old he won two bracelets within a single week on his way to becoming that year’s WSOP Player of the Year.
Trickett is making his first cash of the summer after a rocky start thus far. He’s looking to earn his first WSOP bracelet and add further to his $11.2 million-plus WSOP winnings, more than $10 million of which came from his runner-up finish in the 2012 Big One for One Drop.
Scheduled as a four-day event, the plan today will be to play 10 more one-hour levels and see how many of the 23 are left standing for tomorrow’s finale. Play resumes at 1 p.m. PDT, so start checking the Event #35 live updates then to see who makes it through.
Event #36: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball
From a small field of just 241 players, just six remain in Event #36. Steven Wolansky returns to the chip lead with a stack of 257,000, putting him ahead of Samuel Touil (233,000) and Joseph Cheong (221,500). Rounding out the final table are Christopher Mecklin (145,000), German footballer Max Kruse (131,000), and Orjan Skommo (109,000).
None of these six players has ever won a WSOP bracelet, but Wolansky came as close as one can a year ago when he finished runner-up in the $2,500 8-game event. Cheong, of course, has come close as well, his third-place finish in the 2010 WSOP Main Event being one of three previous WSOP final tables for him. Like Wolansky, Cheong also has finished second in a WSOP event, taking runner-up in the $5K NLHE Mixed-Max event in 2012.
Of the others, Touil, Mecklin, and Kruse are all making their first WSOP cashes in Event #36, while Skommo has three previous in-the-money finishes to his credit, the highest previous one being a 14th-place finish in a $1K NLHE event last year.
Begin refreshing the Event #36 live updates starting at 1 p.m. today to see who of these six players wins his first WSOP bracelet and the $89,483 first prize.
Event #37: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha
A big field of 967 played down to 113 and into the money yesterday in Event #37: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha, with Brandon Paster (135,300) ending play on top of the counts ahead of Fabrice Soulier (129,300) and Michael Wang (113,900).
Others with decent chips to begin today’s Day 2 will include Erick Lindgren who bagged an even 100,000, as well as Taylor Paur and Raj Vohra who each collected 85,000.
Meanwhile down at the bottom of the counts to start today is two-time WSOP bracelet winner and Poker Hall of Fame nominee Humberto Brenes who managed to make the money for an eighth time this summer. Here is a list of the prizes captured thus far in 2014 by the “Shark”:
| Event | Finish | Cash |
|---|---|---|
| #3: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha | 77th | $2,527 |
| #4: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em | 233rd | $1,800 |
| #6: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout | 71st | $4,411 |
| #8: $1,500 Millionaire Maker No-Limit Hold’em | 315th | $6,353 |
| #20: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout | 38th | $7,805 |
| #25: $2,500 Omaha/Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low | 32nd | $6,490 |
| #28: $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em Championship | 14th | $25,327 |
| #37: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha | ??? | ??? |
With his cash in Event #37, Brenes is now three shy of Konstantin Puchkov’s record for most cashes in a single WSOP set in 2012 when the Russian made the money 11 times.
A $264,400 reward and a shiny WSOP bracelet awaits the winner of this one. See if Brenes can spin up his stack and who else manages to negotiate a path to tomorrow’s finale once the Event #37 live updates begin at 1 p.m. today.
Event #38: $10,000 Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low Championship
Also starting Day 2 today will be Event #38: $10,000 Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low Championship in which 75 players return from the 134 who started.
Event #18: $10,000 Seven-Card Razz Championship winner George Danzer established some distance between himself and the rest of the field last night by finishing with 237,800, ahead of Richard Sklar’s second-place stack of 164,300 and way in front of Roland Israelashvili heading the chase pack in third with 110,700.
The top 10 to start today is full of familiar names, including Justin Bonomo (in sixth) who Danzer is just ahead of currently in the 2014 WSOP Player of the Year race, and tournament director Matt Savage (in seventh). Savage hopes to add a fourth WSOP cash to a career résumé that includes one previous final table in a WSOP seven-card stud hi-low event when he took fifth in a $1,500 buy-in tourney in 2009.
Another familiar face hoping to make a second career WSOP final table in this event is ESPN’s Norman Chad who finished sixth in the $2,500 Omaha/stud hi-low event two years ago. Chad returns to a stack of 50,700 today — just below the current average — despite having been forced to endure an exceedingly tough table draw on Day 1:
Four bracelet winners at my starting WSOP 10k stud8 table -- five if you include my ankle bracelet.
— Norman Chad (@NormanChad)
They start back at 2 p.m. local time, so start watching those Event #38 live updates then.
Event #39: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em
Finally just one new event gets going today as Event #39: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em kicks off. Last year in the $3K NLHE event Sandeep Pulusani defeated a big field of 1,072 to win the bracelet and a big $592,684 first prize.
The Event #39 live updates will commence at 12 noon today as another long day of poker begins at the 2014 WSOP.
Here’s the full schedule of bracelet events for Wednesday (all times PDT):
- 12:00 p.m. — Event #39: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em (Day 1 of 3)
- 1:00 p.m. — Event #35: $5,000 Eight-Handed No-Limit Hold’em (Day 3 of 4)
- 1:00 p.m. — Event #37: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha (Day 2 of 3)
- 1:00 p.m. — Event #36: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball (Day 3 of 3)
- 2:00 p.m. — Event #38: $10,000 Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low Championship (Day 2 of 3)
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