I woke up this morning kind of wondering what I was going to write about. Ideally I would be blogging about the six-handed event still...but that pipe dream was crushed before the first break yesterday. My plan has been to trace a story through whatever event I'm covering during the WSOP. Week 1 wrote itself with the Vancouver crew getting off to such a fast start (I'll update the fellas' progress each week through the series) and my excitement for the six-handed tournament yesterday.
But today I've come up a little dry...so this post wanders around like my meandering trip through the Amazon room a few minutes ago.
Usually I make fun of the "stacked tables" other news sources point out, but this one actually is a little tough. Chris Bell, Todd Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Roland DeWolfe (sporting his patented naked lady T-shirt), and David Grey are all at Table 35 in the $5,000 Pot-LImit Holdem event. Oh, yeah, Howard Lederer is there too.
Even with that many "names" at one table, Lederer's presence dominates the scene. While we haven't seen the professor at a final table in some time, he just seems to intimidate the hell out of people. Being six-foot-seventy doesn't hurt, but it's that glare he gives his opponents that makes me want to curl up into a fetal position, suck my thumb, and whimper "mommy...". And I'm not even playing.
Sorel Mizzi is a machine. Unfortunately he was a little miffed that he dropped 15k when his straight draw didn't improve against his opponent's two pair. Of course, he still has 45k when the average stack is 14k. What a bad beat.
I got there just in time to watch Mike "The Mouth" Matusow bluff off 4k on a check-raise before folding to his opponent's all in. Mike saved himself 2k but was busted a few hands later.
Jumpin' John Juanda had rolled his stack up to 22k. Juanda just missed the TV table at the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship. As long as we keep the Coronas coming, he's a shoo-in to make a deep run in this event.
Jen Harman was applying the pressure to internet pro Aaron Been. Been made it to the final four at the Mirage Heads-Up tournament, but ended up folding AK on an A
J
2
board to Harman's 7.5k reraise. There was already 7k in the pot, and they were 7 minutes into the first break before he laid it down.
Jen's husband Marco Traniello couldn't be there to cheer her on, though. He was busy sitting down at his second final table already in just the first week of the WSOP. Marco has more WSOP cashes than any other player since 2005--which I believe was his first time playing multiple events.
As I follow the developing storylines of the $5,000 Pot-Limit Holdem event, Storms Reback will be keeping you up-to-date on Marco's progress battling fellow Full Tilters Phil Ivey and David Oppenheim for the 7 Stud Bracelet.
And in case you're wondering where ace writer Alex Henriquez has been hiding, he's busy working on the debut episode of PokerWired (in the meantime, LA Mike has been seen wandering the halls with a girl known only as "Kate"--more details as soon as I have them).
