With surprisingly little fanfare (no celebrities or showgirls around for the “shuffle up and deal” announcement this year) the 2015 World Series of Poker is off and running. The first official bracelet of this summer’s grandest poker spectacle has been awarded and, in the second tournament on the schedule, there are 20 players that are left to vie for the championship.
Event #1 – $500 Casino Employees Event
The traditional start to the WSOP – the Casino Employees Event – drew a respectable crowd of 688 players when it started on Wednesday, but that hopefully doesn’t signify a trend for this year’s stack of tournaments. Last year, the tournament drew a robust 876 players from around the world to vie for the honor of best poker player among casino employees. In fact, the 688 players was the lowest turnout for the tournament since 2005, when a field of 662 took to the felt in the very same event.
The players didn’t care that the field was a bit smaller, the $75,704 and the WSOP was enough for them to come to the fight. 51 players returned on Thursday to decide who the champion would be and all eyes were on Stephen Gilbert, the start of day chip leader with 236,000 in chips. Gilbert’s run at the title was cut short after the redraw to three tables, however, when he doled out much of his stack to the man who became the new chip leader, Michael Kahn. Gilbert would find a good hand to get his stack to the center – pocket sevens – but Johnny Gagelonia bested him with pocket Jacks on a ten high board to send Gilbert out in 25th place.
The final table would be determined before the survivors went to dinner break. Barnette, who had wrested the lead from Kahn as the festivities began, would relinquish that lead back to Kahn as the players began to depart before taking it back once again. The two seemed destined for a showdown and Kahn would make what would prove to be a fatal mistake against Barnette on an A♥ 8♥ Q♦ flop. After moving all in, Kahn was dismayed to see Barnette nearly beat him into the pot with the call, tabling a K♥ 10♥ for the nut flush draw and a gut shot straight draw. Kahn had nothing but air; he sheepishly tabled his 10♠ 3♥ to be way behind Barnette and, after another Ace on the turn and a five on the river, Kahn was unceremoniously out in fifth place.
Barnette would eventually work his way to the heads up match with nearly a 3:1 lead over Greg Seiden (2.52 million to 885K), but Barnette’s work wasn’t done yet. Seiden proved to be a worthy opponent as, only five hands into heads up action, Seiden found a double up to pull the stacks close to even. Sniffing out a Barnette bluff, Seiden would take a massive lead only eight hands later and seemed to be on his way to the title.
Barnette wouldn’t go away, however. Down to only 300,000 chips, Barnette would draw back to even with Seiden within five hands of his expected demise. Ten hands later, Barnette would retake the lead over Seiden and, on the final hand, both men would have good hands – Barnette pocket eights, Seiden pocket fours – but Barnette’s eights found another snowman on the river for good measure to earn Barnette the championship of the Casino Employees Event.
1. Brandon Barnette, $75,704
2. Greg Seiden, $46,735
3. Zachary Seufert, $30,382
4. Gary Kochalka, $22,315
5. Michael Kahn, $16,662
6. Ai Ping Xue, $12,542
7. Thomas McFadden, $9573
8. Phi Tran, $7389
9. Chris Jones, $5762
Event #2 – $5000 No Limit Texas Hold’em
Also starting on Wednesday was Event #2 on the 2015 WSOP schedule, the $5000 No Limit Hold’em tournament. As with the Casino Employees tournament, this event also failed to make its numbers from 2014. David Miscikowski defeated a field of 696 players in winning his first WSOP bracelet in 2014 in this tournament. For 2015, however, only 422 runners came to the line, a 40% drop in field size in year-to-year comparison.
As usual with the high buy-in tournaments, Event #2 is the domain of the professionals for the most part. After knocking the field down to 171 players after Wednesday’s play, the field was further cut on Thursday to just the final 20 players standing. 76-year old Carl Westcott – who holds the honor of being a member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans (an impressive honor also bestowed on poet/academic Maya Angelou and renowned comedian/actor Bob Hope) – will have the pole position with his 1.066 million chips, but a host of “young guns” are looking to take him down.
Sitting in his best seat to winning his second WSOP bracelet, 2012 World Champion Greg Merson will be in third place when the cards hit the air on Friday, holding 800,000 in chips to keep both David ‘Doc’ Sands (704K) and Jason Wheeler (683K) at bay. Other notable names such as Barry Hutter (609K, ninth place), Amir Lehavot (473K, 12th) and Byron Kaverman (372K, 13th) are also in the hunt, while Alex Bolotin (271K, 18th), Kevin MacPhee (178K, 19th) and Nam Le (155K, 20th) will have their work cut out for them if they are to get in the fight.
Plans for the day are to have the 20 men work their way down to the WSOP nine-handed final table, at which point play will be suspended until Saturday. It promises to be an intriguing battle as the 2015 World Series of Poker enters into its first weekend of action.