JC Tran has just arrived at table 296 in the blue section, but folded along with the rest of the table to the player in the hijack position, who raised to 750 before the flop. He found one caller in Rayan Nathan in the big blind, so off they went heads-up to the flop of .
Nathan checked to the hijack who bet 825. Nathan called and then he led out for 1,700 on the turn of the . The hijack laid his hand down and Nathan scooped the pot.
With Tran, Nathan and Jeff Shulman now all sharing space there, we're expecting to see some fireworks here in Amazon Blue!
"Sure, I'll gladly take those chips," says David Bach
The World Series of Poker Main Event is sometimes referred to as a lottery. But really, there are more than a few differences -- as perhaps was just demonstrated in the previous level in a hand between David Bach and Joe Moize.
Bach related to us details of the hand during the break, one which he described as one of the more memorable he's ever played. His opponent, Moize, had won his way into the Main Event not via a satellite, but a scratch-off ticket. That's right. The 73-year-old farmer from Hurdle Mills, NC won a trip to Las Vegas and entry into the ME via the North Carolina Lottery.
According to Bach, Moize had told the table he'd never played poker before prior to playing his final hand today. Of course, the way his final hand went, others might've suspected as much anyway.
The hand began with the 2009 $50K H.O.R.S.E. champion limping in from the cutoff holding and both blinds coming along, including Moize. The flop came and it checked to Bach who bet just 200. Only Moize called. The turn was the case , and Moize bet 1,000. Bach raised to 3,500, and Moize called.
The river was a -- no flush was possible -- and Moize checked. Bach, suspecting Moize had a queen and would not be able to let it go, bet big -- 12,000. To Bach's surprise, Moize announced he was reraising. "Make it 18," he said, not realizing that wasn't enough to reraise. Moize only had about 23,000 left, and so it all went into the middle. Bach happily called with his quad aces.
Moize's hand? .
It appears fairly certain that unlike in the lottery, Moize probably wasn't going to be winning here.
Kind of a win-win, though, as Moize and his wife have gotten to enjoy a free trip to Vegas, while Bach enjoyed a healthy addition to his starting stack. He now sits with about 55,000.
We've just spotted another notable in the Orange section of the Amazon Room, and it's a name you might have seen on TV. It's his backstory that's most noteworthy, however.
Mike Kosowski spent his working career as a Detective Sergeant with the New York Police Department, and he was one of the first responders to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. As it was for so many of his colleagues, that day would prove to be the worst of his life. The South tower essentially collapsed right on top of Kosowski, and he suffered through five herniated discs as he pulled himself from the rubble and limped to the relative safety of a nearby building.
"Talk about lucky," Kosowski said. "I was one of the luckiest guys in the world to survive that day."
If not for that day, though, Kosowski would likely not be sitting here playing the World Series of Poker Main Event.
The injuries he endured ended his career in law enforcement a couple years later, and Kosowski needed to find something to occupy his free time. Online poker filled the void nicely, and he spent his days grinding away on the virtual felt. One average day, Kosowski ended up entering a 16,000-player freeroll for a chance at a seat in a televised poker show. To make a long story short, a couple months down a long qualifying road, he was in Los Angeles sitting across the felt from Daniel Negreanu with a chance to win seven figures on the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge.
He did it. Kosowski capped off a true feel-good story as he overcame Negreanu's challenge to collect the million-dollar paycheck and pad his early retirement.
Kosowski has put $10,000 of those winnings to use today, sitting at Table 310 in our Orange section. It's going quite well so far, too, as he sits among the big stacks with 75,000 chips at the moment.
Kosowski is very much interested in his family following along back home, and we'd like to give a shout-out to his wife Fran, children Mike and Rachele, and the family dog, Joe DiMaggio.
Another level down here on Day 1d means we’re on another 20-minute break. The past two hours of action saw some notables hit the rail including Prahlad Friedman, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Steve Zolotow, James Mackey, Frank Kassela, William Reynolds, Paul Magriel, and Michael Chow.
While some players failed to survive Level 2, others thrived. For instance, Casey McCarrel got in a preflop raising war with an unknown opponent before all the money wound up in the pot. McCarrel, who held , was in bad shape against his opponent’s , but that all changed as the board ran out . McCarrel’s flopped full house allowed him to take down the pot and he vaulted toward the top of the chip counts with 71,000!
Others who managed to have a decent level were Joe Tehan (86,000), Andrew Chen (97,000), Alan Sternberg (88,000), and Jeff Madsen (50,050).
Action will resume in 20 minutes, so be sure to check back then for all the action and eliminations from Day 1d of the 2011 WSOP Main Event.
Age Spets appears to be missing from table 352 but there is a David Williams there with a stack of 93,000 so we're guessing he took most of the Norwegian's chips.
Slight problem for us today given that we already have Team PokerStars Pro David Williams in the chip counts, "he's always stealing my cashes," lamented new David Williams. However with that in mind, we're going to refer to new David Williams as Dave Williams for our chip counts and simplicity.
We found Allen Blanton in the Orange section sporting one of the best hats we've seen this year. All sorts of characters find their way to the Main Event and Blanton is no exception. His hat reads "I spend my money on Booze, gambling, and women. The rest I WASTE."
Blanton is playing in his first ever WSOP event. He's 58 years old and said in a syrupy thick Kentucky drawl, "I've got some medical problems so I'm not sure how much time I've got left."
Blanton has been watching in on ESPN for years. "I've been watching it so long I figured I want some of those millions. I've been playing (poker) for 42 years."
As we were talking to him he limped into a pot from early position and the player on his left raised to 650. Action folded all the way back around to Blanton and he said, "Well there son, you tryin' to get me off my hand? I guess I'll play the next one."
Blanton folded and is enjoying his WSOP experience. "I'm enjoying this thing, it's really fun. I wasn't a while ago because I was down."
When asked if he'd been to the Pavilion room yet he said, "No not yet, but I figure I'll get lost in there."
![[user135779]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
.
. The hijack laid his hand down and Nathan scooped the pot.
and both blinds coming along, including Moize. The flop came 
and it checked to Bach who bet just 200. Only Moize called. The turn was the case 
-- no flush was possible -- and Moize checked. Bach, suspecting Moize had a queen and would not be able to let it go, bet big -- 12,000. To Bach's surprise, Moize announced he was reraising. "Make it 18," he said, not realizing that wasn't enough to reraise. Moize only had about 23,000 left, and so it all went into the middle. Bach happily called with his quad aces.
.
, was in bad shape against his opponent’s 
, but that all changed as the board ran out 
. McCarrel’s flopped full house allowed him to take down the pot and he vaulted toward the top of the chip counts with 71,000!
