As you’d expect, the majority of the attention in the Amazon room on Friday was grabbed by the big buy in $111,111 One Drop Event #47. It was expected to play down to a winner, but life is never that easy. The other big event was the start of the $25,000 6-Max Event #52, and a certain big stack in the one Drop playing both at the same time.
Event #47
The $111,111 One Drop Event #47 has played through it’s expected three day schedule, but still hasn’t finished. We still have 4 players left in, all hoping to be the one to pick up the $4,830,619 for first place. Remarkably, Antonio Esfandiari is one of these four, and is looking to go back to back to be the only winner of a One Drop WSOP Event.
The other big story is Anthony Gregg multitabling both the final table of the One Drop, and the $25,000 6-Max Event #52, and he’s still in both events. We’ll be bringing you an update on the action after the final table has come to a close. The chip stacks of the final four are:
- Bill Perkins – 14,700,000
- Anthony Gregg – 13,900,000
- Chris Klodnicki – 12,000,000
- Antonio Esfandiari – 9,200,000
These four will be back in action at 1pm, and will be playing down to a winner.
Event #48
The final day of the $2,500 Limit Hold’em 6-Max Event #48 saw a winner crowned in the form of Marco Johnson. He picked up a cheque for $206,796 to go with his new gold bracelet, and did so by beating out a nice and stacked final table. A full report will be up later, but until then, you’ll have to make do with the final table payouts:
- Marco Johnson – $206,796
- Jeff Thompson – $127,801
- Juha Helppi – $82,956
- Danny Warchol – $55,457
- Michael Schiffman – $38,095
- Maria Ho — $26,858
Event #49
The second day of the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Event #49 saw just over 8% of the players starting the day make it all the way through to Day 3. 257 started, and 21 are coming back to play on Saturday. Some of those to succumb to the action were Neil Channing (207th for $3,003), Shane Schleger (136th for $3,276), and James Anderson (67th for $6,248)
Kevin MacPhee (136,000) is the short stack coming into Day 3, but is, apart from Barny Boatman (347,000), the only really well known name in the remaining field.
The top ten stacks coming back for the final day of action are:
- Robin Ylitalo- 1,151,000
- Paul Dasilva – 1,129,000
- Taras Kripps – 945,000
- Valentin Messina – 905,000
- Brian O’Donoghue – 772,000
- Walter Treccarichi – 757,000
- J Austin Hijar – 638,000
- Noah Sandler – 616,000
- Jan Eric Schwippert – 459,000
- Sergei Stazhkov – 410,000
The players will be back in action at 2pm Las Vegas time, and the tournament directors will be hoping to see this play to a finish.
Event #50
The $2,500 10 Game Mix 6-Max Event #50 started with 162 players, and it took the day to grind that down to just 20. The bubble burst during that time, and players who saw the bubble burst, but still exited the event included Freddy Deeb (31st for $4,933), Marcel Luske (30th for $5,805) and Gavin Smith (28th for $5,805).
The short stack belongs to Konstantin Puchkov, and the WSOP bracelet holder has only 17,500 chips left. Grreg Raymer is still in, but is also pretty short with only 69,300 chips left to his name.
Saturday’s big stacks will be:
- Scott Abrams – 351,700
- Sebastian Saffari – 294,300
- Philip Sternheimer – 229,900
- Brain Tate – 211,800
- Robert Williamson III – 203,100
- Christopher Geroge – 197,400
- Michael Jarmark – 192,400
- Loren Klein – 152,300
- Brandon Wong – 145,000
- Tom McCormick – 112,500
The cards will be back in the air at 2pm local time, and the players will trying to get closer to the 50th bracelet of the year.
Event #51
One of the most controversial events of the year is the Ladies Event #51. This year the rules have changed to reduce the chances of any men deciding to take advantage of the legal situation of the WSOP not being able to discriminate by gender. Any male players would be forced to pay $10,000 as a buy in for this event, while the ladies get to enter for $1,000, as a $9,000 discount is applied under the same laws that allow lady only drink promotions. It seems to have worked, as it’s been reported that no-one has paid the full $10,000. 954 ladies have stepped up to the challenge, but only 122 of them will be back for Day 2. Among those that have fallen include Vanessa Selbst, Vicky Coren , Kara Scott and Jennifer Tilly. Notatbles who have made Day 2 include Annette Obrestad (1,450), Kathy Liebert (7,600) and Liv Boeree (44,600).
The big piles of chips coming back for Day 2 are:
- Chris Priday – 96,200
- Sari F Utchen – 80,500
- Lauren Billings – 74,600
- Vanessa Kade – 71,300
- Kristen Bicknell – 69,400
- Vanessa Ames – 57,100
- Shana Matthews – 56,800
- Amanda Baker – 56,200
- Annie Liu – 55,800
- Danielle Anderson – 55,700
The ladies will be back in their seats at 1pm Vegas time, and will be playing towards the final table, and the $173,922 first prize.
Event #52
The first day of this $25,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Max Event #52 attracted 175 players, and among them included a bevy of famous names. The top ten chips stack list looks like a who’s who of poker, with Phil Galfond, Ben “Sauce 1234” Sulsky and “Mad” Marvin Rettenmaier all appearing. 74 players who signed up won’t be coming back, and among those bustees were Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Tilly, Chris Moorman, Ike Haxton and Phil Ivey.
We’re expecting fireworks from this event over the next two days, and they’ll probably come from the players sitting on the biggest stacks:
- Max Lehmanski – 406,000
- Phil Galfond – 338,700
- CraigCasino – 333,000
- Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky – 330,300
- Marvin Rettenmaier – 289,400
- Brandon Meyers – 258,100
- François Safieddine – 250,000
- Michael Lipman – 250,000
- Alex Uskov – 236,000
- David “Bakes” Baker – 223,700
The players will be lighting the blue touch paper at 14:00pst, and will playing 10 levels or down to a final table, which ever comes first.
Player of the Year
Friday saw David “Bakes” Baker jump to second in the 2013 WSOP Player of the Year race, still sitting behind Daniel Negreanu, who has been entrenched at the top since the series arrived in Las Vegas. Marco Johnson has also made an appearance in the top ten after his win in Event #48.
- Daniel Negreanu – 470.53
- David “Bakes” Baker – 459.10
- Tom Schneider – 438.51
- Marco Johnson – 430.63
- Jared Humby – 368.73
- Daniel Kelly – 344.70
- Jason Duval – 328.85
- Mark Radoja – 327.75
- Erick Lindgren – 323.51
- Jesse Martin – 318.38
Saturday is going to have an extra final table added in to the mix after the One Drop Event #47 didn’t come to a close on time. This means we’ll have three final table reports for you tomorrow, as well as our report on the action from the other events in progress. We’ll also have the action from the $1,500 no Limit Hold’em Event #53 that’s starting as well.