Despite the relatively low blinds compared to the chip stacks, players seem more and more willing to get their chips into the middle. The echoes of "all in and a call" are becoming increasingly frequent as level 2 continues on.
After a player in late position opened for 575 Marco Johnson raised to 1,800. The other player reraised to 6,575 and Johnson moved all in for 16,725. The other player called and indeed had pocket aces, leaving Johnson's in dire straits. The board ran out and Johnson's day came to an abrupt end.
Shortly after slipping to 14,000, Barry Greenstein turned a king-high straight with and got it all in against an opponent holding a set of tens. Greenstein's hand held up, and he is back up to 29,000.
The fire alarm just started going off in the Amazon Room. It's a flashing strobe light, punctuated by a series of high-pitched shrieking sounds. As you might expect, everyone is ignoring it.
An opponent checks on a river of and T6 pro Thierry van den Berg bets 5,000 into a 9,000 pot. The opponent calls and turns over . Thierry has for a missed flush and is down to 11,000.
Bart Tichelman, winner of the 2008 WSOP Circuit Event in Tunica, is playing day 1a and looks to have another strong showing. Having played very little poker since since his big win in Mississippi this January, Tichelman's time is mainly consumed by his career. A CEO and corporate president by day, Tichelman put poker on the back burner until the main event.
He told us on break "my table is a lot tougher than I thought it would be." "I've got [Darrell] Dicken two seats to my left and these guys are all playing well."
Tichelman is about average with just over 22,000 chips.
On a flop of , a middle position player led out for 600, Luis Velador reraised to 1,600 and the MP player called. The turn was the . The MP player checked, Velador bet 2,700 and the MP player called. The river was the and both players checked.
The MP player turned up and Velador mucked. After a roller-coaster first two levels, Velador is back to 22,000.
A player on Orange #27 recently won a big pot. He reached into his pocket, fished out a dollar, and tossed it to the dealer.
A few minutes later, he won another big hand with the nuts against the second nuts. He tipped the dealer another dollar. Everyone else at the table must have decided he was onto something, because the dealer now has a stack of about fifteen to twenty dollars in tokes in her tray.