As the action continued in the first two events of the 2014 World Series of Poker, Event #3, the action packed $1000 Pot Limit Omaha tournament, took to the floor of the Rio for its first day of action. After 1128 players came to the tables for Day One, Loren Klein has emerged as the chip leader by a wide margin.
When the cards hit the air at noon on Wednesday, there were quite a few familiar faces taking their shot at this championship. Jimmy Fricke, Sam Stein, Shannon Shorr, Ari Engel, Eric Froehlich, Mike Leah, Gavin Smith, John Monnette, Mike Matusow, Barry Shulman, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliot, Erick Lindgren and Allen Cunningham were in their seats for the first cards, but Chance Kornuth had perhaps the most interesting stay. Only 20 minutes after the start of play, Kornuth had burned through his 3000 chip starting stack and commented over Twitter, “Already busted the 1K PLO. Good one to bust early if I do say so myself.”
The 1128 players established a new record at this, the 45th running of poker’s most prestigious event. By bringing in that many players, the tournament became the largest non-No Limit event in WSOP history. For the $1000 buy-in, 117 players would carve up the $1.015 million prize pool with $205,634 and the WSOP bracelet awaiting the eventual champion.
The Day One slog was brutal on the field as the players cracked the money bubble before the conclusion of action. Coming up short of the money were such players as Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Michael Mizrachi, Dan Kelly and Jason Mercier, who will have to wait another day (at least) for their first cash of the 2014 WSOP. Dan Smith, Daniel Buzgon, Jeff Shulman, Brent Roberts and Huck Seed would all get some money back for their min-cash ($1928), but others had far greater ambitions than just a small stack of bills.
The most notable of those players was Klein, who quietly was able to amass a 133,900 chip stack to become the only player with a six-figure stack to end the day. While he sits atop the 106 players that remain, Klein has some serious competition (and the volatility of Pot Limit Omaha) to contend with if he is to remain in the game during Day Two.
1. Loren Klein, 133,900
2. John O’Shea, 89,000
3. Allan Le, 88,200
4. Iori Yogo, 79,900
5. Steve Billirakis, 73,800
6. John Gordon, 73,100
7. Mark Thoennes, 67,000
8. Phil Laak, 65,700
9. Philip Siegel, 58,500
10. Leif Force, 58,100
Other players bubbling under the Top Ten include Ashton Griffin (11th, 51,500), William Reynolds (13th, 48,200), former World Champion Greg Merson (19th, 33,200), Maria Ho (21st, 32,000) and Christian Harder (22nd, 28,500).
Day Two kicks off at 1PM in the Amazon Room at the Rio, with the plans to work down to the final table and award the bracelet on Friday.
STARTING TODAY
As the throttle is pulled back and reaching full throat at the WSOP, two tournaments take to the stage today for their Day One action.
The first one beginning at noon is a $1000 No Limit Hold’em tournament, Event #4 on the 2014 WSOP schedule. These tournaments are always popular with many amateur players as, for the minimal buy-in, they get to take their shot at poker history. That doesn’t mean that some pros won’t be in the field. Matt Waxman defeated Eric Baldwin in one of these tournaments in 2013 and Taylor Paur earned his first WSOP victory in another $1000 NLHE event.
At 4PM, the WSOP will hope to keep the sharks happy while the games go on. Event #5, a $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball tournament, will have some of the top players in the game playing one of the more difficult disciplines of poker. It will be difficult to diagnose what the field size for this tournament will be as, in 2013, the tournament was a $2500 event. 282 players came out last year (with Eli Elezra eventually topping Daniel Negreanu for the bracelet) and, if WSOP officials can get between 125-150 players to pony up the dime for Event #5, they’ll probably be happy.
There’s plenty of action as we are only two days into the 2014 WSOP. That action will ramp up even further as we enter the first weekend of play tomorrow.
