The World Poker Tour has returned to the site of one of its big success stories from last year, the Seminole Hard Rock Showdown on the sunny coast of Hollywood, Florida, where David Nicholson has assumed the pole position over the field.
Last year, the tournament – which came shortly after the stunning announcement of the “Black Friday” indictments and was the WPT’s first venture to the Sunshine State – drew better than expected, especially after the DoJ’s announcement. 433 players showed up for the $10,000 buy in tournament, one of the bigger tournament fields of the WPT’s Season Nine schedule, and Taylor von Kriegenbergh etched his name into WPT lore as the inaugural champion of the tournament.
This year’s tournament kicked off bright and early at noon (Eastern Time) in the Seminole Hard Rock Arena, normally a locale where concerts are held. Instead of Marshall Amps and screaming crowds, however, twenty tables were set up for the action of the WPT. Jason Somerville and former WPT World Championship winner Tuan Le were just a few pros who came out despite the early hour, but there was one player who might have wanted to stay in bed. Chance Kornuth threw a cooler at Josh Brikis when Kornuth’s pocket Aces trumped Brikis’ pocket Kings, crippling Brikis; the next hand, Brikis was eliminated.
One of the former members of the WPT staff had perhaps the biggest day of all the players, although he won’t be seen on the upper echelons of the leaderboard. After losing an early pot when his bottom two pair was beaten by a set, Alex Outhred was down to only around 5000 of his 30K starting chips. Through the action of the day, however, Outhred was able to right the ship, stating over Twitter, “Going into last level with 58K…huge uptick from 4900 in first level.”
Although he would drop some chips from that stack over the final level of the night, the performance by Outhred throughout the day was outstanding. “Finished Day One of the Hard Rock Seminole WPT Main with around 48K…Feels like a million,” he Tweeted at the close of business on Thursday. Outhred has a WPT final table to his credit (the 2006 Mandalay Bay Poker Championship) and was a long time member of the statistical staff with the WPT.
There were top professionals who would not be able to make it out of the first five rounds of the tournament on Thursday, however. James Dempsey, Abe Mosseri, Tony Dunst, and Kevin Saul were some of the vanquished on Day One. On the other hand, David “Chino” Rheem was able to knock out a player when his top two pair held over a straight, flush and straight flush draw, pushing him to the lead early in the day. The current leader in the WPT Player of the Year race, Will “The Thrill” Failla, also was able to work up the leaderboard when he came out on top of a three way all in.
By the time the players bagged up the chips on Thursday night, David Nicholson had taken a firm hold of the Day One chip lead while deftly avoiding the notice of the WPT Updates team. Florida pro John Dolan fit into the second slot behind him, but there’s a long way to go and a host of big names looking for the Hard Rock championship:
1. David Nicholson, 132,300
2. John Dolan, 120,200
3. Eric Afriat, 118,500
4. David “Chino” Rheem, 106,100
5. Kyle Bowker, 104,000
6. Jonathan Little, 87,975
7. Andy Frankenberger, 83,625
8. Tim Miles, 72,000
9. Ashton Griffin, 70,000
10. Micah Raskin, 68,000
Allie Prescott, Allen Kessler, Tristan Wade, Jason Mercier, Kathy Liebert and the defending champion von Kriegenbergh all will be in action on Friday, although von Krigenbergh’s short stack (20,525) may find its way to the center quickly.
As registration is open until the start of action on Friday, final numbers are not yet available. There are 201 players left from yesterday’s starters (around 280 players), but the number is expected to grow as players drift in before the cards hit the air this morning.
