Eric Froelich sat at the same table as Mel Judah and Dan O’Brien, and each of them had about the same amount of chips. It seemed destined to be a long drawn-out battle to the end for E-Fro when the following hand arose. Dan O’Brien, a young player who thought the Rio “too expensive” to stay in, choosing instead to “crash with buddies” during his time at the Series, raised to 3k from the button. Judah folded from the small blind before E-Fro moved all in from the big blind. O’Brien took his time deciding whether or not to call. He asked E-Fro how many chips he had. E-Fro casually threw out a figure, roughly 7k. Finally, O’Brien said something about having to gamble in order to advance past such a tough table. He called and showed A10. As it turned out, he wasn’t gambling at all. E-Fro could only show K6, and with his diamond draw nullified he was drawing thin. When he couldn’t catch a king or a 6, he headed for the door.

One table over Erick Lindgren was in an equally tough battle with Chris McCormack, a strong tournament player who won $802,895 for his second-place finish at the 2006 Borgata Open. The lead went back and forth until McCormack raised before the flop with A-7. E-Dog called and the flop came AJ8. Slowplaying his ace, McCormack checked. E-Dog checked behind him. The turn was the 4. Again, it went check, check. The river was the 10. McCormack finally tried to extract some money out of his opponent, firing out a bet, but his trap had backfired. E-Dog raised him 7k. He had made a straight on the river with KQ and McCormack paid him off. The final hand would come shortly after. With K10 E-Dog had top pair after the flop came 26K and when he pushed in McCormack called and lost. 

In a striking juxtaposition to E-Fro’s slow unpleasant walk out of the tent E-Dog was all happy manic energy. “I gotta go,” he told the floor man. “I got [the film crew from] ESPN waiting at my house.” And with that he tossed the man a $100 tip and hustled out the door.

Despite a half an hour delay to accommodate a slew of last-minute entries which pushed the field from 800 to 900, the tournament got off to an excellent start, especially when compared to last year when the event was played with only six players sitting at each table. Even with nine players at a table, the field was still large enough to require the use of the Poker Tent, where, you might recall, “Eskimo” Clark collapsed yesterday afternoon. Amongst the big names forced to schlep themselves out to the Tent were Erick Lindgren and Eric Froelich (“E-Dog” and “E-Fro”!).

What I find most interesting about this tournament is how different the play can vary from table to table. At some of the faster and looser tables a winner of Round 1 was crowned within an hour or two while at the slower tables a champ might not emerge until this evening. At one of the faster tables to get down to two players Erick Seidel is battling Mitch Shock heads-up. At the outset Seidel only had 10k while Shock had 20k, but Seidel knows a little something about heads-up play. Relying on his experience and guile as well as a hand where he got quad jacks, Seidel grabbed the lead 17k-13k, which at last glance he had stretched to 19k-11k. “You got the best of me on this heads-up,” Shock said at one point. “I really want to suck out on you so if I say I beat Erick Seidel I can then explain that I was way behind in the hand.”

As important as who is left is who is gone. Fresh from winning his record-breaking 11^th gold bracelet, Phil Hellmuth was all smiles at his table until he pushed a little too hard with K-7 and got called by a player with A-10 and another holding pocket sevens. Hellmuth complained about his misfortune to Daniel Negreanu: “I can’t believe it. I can beat 3,000 players, but I can’t beat those nine?” Negreanu didn’t respond. He was too busy steamrolling his table. With three players left he had amassed most of the chips on the table.