Al Janedi Leads First-Ever Ante Only Event
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Day 1 of the much talked about Event 49, $1,500 Ante Only No Limit Hold’em, of the World Series of Poker has wrapped up. A solid 939 players took to the felt to play the first ever ante only event in WSOP history. At the end of bagging and tagging just 110 players remain with Sameer Al Janedi leading the field with a healthy 177,000.
Chasing Al Janedi are John Hayes, Just Schwartz and Zach Humphrey. Notables Jon Turner, Mclean Karr, Amanda Baker, Erick Lindgren, Mike McDonald, Mike Leah, Martins Adeniya, Jeff Williams, Melanie Weisner and Mickey Petersen remain in the field.
Plenty of notables gave the event a try but did not advance to Day 2, including: Daniel Negreanu, Bryan Slick (inventor of the variant), Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Kara Scott, Shane Schleger, Andrew Lichtenberger, David Williams, Neil Channing, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, David “Bakes” Baker, Vanessa Rousso and Eugene Katchalov.
The field approached the money bubble with just 17 minutes left in the evening. Hand-for-hand play lasted just one hand. Morgan Machina was the unfortunate bubble boy after his 
was beat by a nine-high flush.
At the start of play many players weren’t exactly sure of the structure. The ante would increase with the levels but the bring in bet would be the smallest denomination chip in play. So in Level 9 there was a 300 ante with a 100 bring in.
The action was fast at the start and each tabled seemed to settle in pattern unique to them. Players that would move from broken tables almost always had a comment concerning about the average opening bet was a little different.
Jeffrey Dobin joined the field as the only player to have won a live ante only event. The WSOPC experimented with the format during the Caesars Palace Circuit stop earlier this year. Dobin took home $25,931 and a WSOPC gold ring after defeating a field of 203 players and will advance to tomorrow with 58,200.
Grant Levy didn’t survive the day but he did have one of the most notable hands on the day. He was all in preflop for 2,500 and had two callers – one that had him covered and one with slightly less. Levy held pocket aces and was looking to hold against pocket tens and pocket fours. The flop sealed the pot for him when it came 
. The shorter stack left the table before the river card was dealt and the other could only sit and watch.
Day 2 of the event will start promptly at 1:00 p.m. PST in the Purple Section of the Amazon Room. Join us and follow all the WSOP action live on PokerNews.com.