It's been a rough first hour for Nick Schulman. After losing half his stack early, he just suffered another setback to fall to 10,000. He led every street of a board -- 400 on the flop, 1,100 on the turn and 2,200 on the river. The river is where his lone opponent check-raised to 6,3000. Schulman folded his hand.
2010 World Series of Poker
Let's face it. For many player in the field -- even the most skilled -- the Main Event is something of a lottery. You need some luck and you need some run-good to go along with your skill if you hope to be one of the November Niners. With only 10% of the field reaching the money, thousands of players will leave having done nothing but light $10,000 on fire. They'll need a back-up plan if they're looking to get rich quick.
One player at Orange 327 is already thinking ahead. He has a copy of The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor by Robert Hagstrom on his lap. He's reading it in between hands.
Jimmy Fricke stopped by to say hello as he's playing today as well. He had a small complaint about the tables being ten-handed to start. "Why are we ten-handed when the entire Pavilion room is empty?"
Indeed Fricke is correct as now the few tables that began in Pavilion have been broken and moved into the Amazon Room. Surely they could have made every table nine- or even eight-handed, but ten it will be.
Vince Van Patten and both blinds saw a flop for 200 chips apiece. The action was checked to Van Patten, who bet 400. The small blind folded and the big blind called. The turn was the and the action was checked around. Same story when the hit the river.
The big blind showed but it wasn't enough to beat Van Patten's pocket kings. He took down the pot and increased his stack to 34,000.
Anton Allemann opened to 325 from middle position and Peter Feldman made the call as Pierre Neuville defended his big blind.
Allemann fired out 750 on the flop and only Feldman came along as the turn landed the and Allemann fired once again; this time for 1,600.
Feldman made the call as the dealer produced the on the river to prompt Allemann to go deep into the tank before eventually checking.
Feldman quickly checked behind, only to muck at the sight of Allemann's for rivered trips, and the pot to send him to 32,300 as Feldman slips to 27,050.
Alejandro Quattrini and Scott Herd just had a super rare occurrence happen over at Table 295 in the Blue section of Amazon. First, Herd raised, Quattrini reraised, Herd moved all in and after some time in the tank, Quattrini folded pocket kings face up. Herd showed him that he made a good laydown, tabling two aces.
Just ten minutes later, Quattrini raised to 400 from under the gun before Herd reraised to 1,050 from the hijack seat. Quattrini moved all in for 22,675 and Herd went into the tank.
"You know what, I'm going to return the favor," said Herd as he tossed pocket kings into the muck face up. Quattrini showed that he had two aces.
What are the chances the same two players fold kings to aces preflop against each other in opposite spots within ten minutes of each other? And in the WSOP Main Event? WOW!
The under-the-gun player raised to 300, a middle position player called and Greg Raymer moved all-in for 1,025. Both opponents called, and they checked down the board.
"Please, nobody say 'straight'," Raymer said as he turned over for a set. It was good, and he tripled up to 3,225.
At the start of the day, there were 18 tables in the Pavilion Room. But they began breaking into Amazon as soon as cards were in the air. There are only three tables left, and they're headed into the chaos of Amazon momentarily. Don't worry. We haven't lost that many people already. They are sending these players to some of the unsold seats at Amazon tables. Pavilion should be filling up again momentarily with people here for the 1:00 p.m. deepstack.
"All in and call table 266!" screamed a dealer above the clatter of riffling chips and general main event chit chat.
Our PokerNews reporter rushed over to find Takashi Ogura having all but 600 of his chips in the middle.
Ogura:
Opponent:
The flop of saw Ogura call for a three in broken English, but unfortunately for the Japanese professional player, the turn and river landed the and to see Ogura slip to 600 and his opponent double his 26,600 stack.
Deep-stacked poker is what we're playing right now. Each payers started with 300 big blinds in his or her stack. Having stacks that deep tends to make players more cautious than they might otherwise be. Take Steve Wong.
Wong was involved in pot with one opponent who checked the turn, . Wong fired 1,675 into the pot and was called. The river paired the board, . Wong's opponent led hat card for 3,150 and Wong opted to call. His opponent showed for a full house; Wong had a bigger full house with .