What some poker players have been waiting all summer for opened up for business on Saturday. Day 1A of the 2014 World Series of Poker Championship Event took to the felt battlegrounds of the Rio at noon sharp yesterday, with the defending champion of the tournament, Ryan Riess, stepping up to defend his title.
As the players began to file into the various arenas around the Rio, the WSOP celebrated its tenth anniversary of its move to the Rio by bringing back 2005 World Champion Joe Hachem to offer the ceremonial call to action. After opening comments from WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel and Executive Director Ty Stewart, Hachem encouraged his fellow players to “play your game, enjoy your game and I hope to see you at the final table.” Once Hachem concluded with the traditional “shuffle up and deal,” the 2014 WSOP Championship Event was underway.
Surprisingly for a Day 1A (there will be three opening days for this year’s tournament), there were several notable names mixing it up early. Jason Mercier, David Chiu, Annette Obrestad, Tony Dunst, Abe Mosseri, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Gabriel Nassif and Andrew Lichtenberger all rolled out early on Saturday to be a part of the Day 1A action. There were also three members of last year’s “November Nine” included in the mix, Marc-Etienne McLaughlin, runner-up Jay Farber and defending champion Riess.
The early hours of the Day 1A play saw the field fill out even further with top pros on the tables. 1983 World Champion Tom McEvoy, the Global Poker Index’ #1 player in the world, Ole Schemion, Amanda Musumeci, Samuel Chartier, Max Altergott and Justin Bonomo were but a few of those players, but it was a clash between a couple of other pros that drew some early attention.
Sizing up fellow pro Nick DiVella, Mike Matusow was completely lost in a hand with a board showing 3-7-6-A-2 and no chances at a flush. After DiVella had fired a sizeable river bet, Matusow admitted, “I don’t know what to do” as he stated he had flopped two pair. After several minutes of thought, Matusow eventually would slip his cards to the dealer and DiVella picked up the pot, moving over 41K what Matusow was left with roughly 23K.
While some of these players were able to navigate the early waters of the Championship Event, Bruno Fitoussi wasn’t one of them. Never able to get anything going (“he got coolered the entire day,” a tablemate commented), Fitoussi would get his final chips in on a Q-9-2 flop with a 10-9 for second pair. That wasn’t good enough to top his opponent’s flopped top pair of Queens and, once Fitoussi couldn’t find a nine or ten on the turn or river, he would take the cruelest walk – away from the WSOP Championship Event – only about five hours after it had started.
Fitoussi would have plenty of company on the rail as play moved into the evening hours. Sean Jazayeri, 2012 November Niner Steven Gee and Mercier were gone before the dinner break and, once the remaining players came back and closed registration for the day, the official numbers were announced.
Only 771 players put up the $10,000 buy in for the WSOP Championship Event on Day 1A, meaning that the next two days will be closely watched to see just how big the overall field will be. Traditionally a Day 1A is the least populated of a multi-opening day tournament but, if the numbers are going to meet up with previous WSOP Championship Events, then Days 1B and 1C for this year’s soiree are going to have to average 3000 players each day (entirely possible).
The story of the day was Martin Jacobson, who slowly built up a mountain of chips as he maneuvered through Day 1A. By the close of business on Saturday, Jacobson was the only player over the 200K threshold, but there’s still two other Day Ones and a long way to go before starting to think about the money:
1. Martin Jacobson, 200,100
2. Aaron Witt, 157,650
3. Andy Hwang, 118,875
4. Mukul Pahuja, 114,800
5. Alex Simic, 110,675
6. Raymond Ezzie, 104,850
7. Nick DiVella, 102,525
8. Kevin MacPhee, 102,250
9. Vegard Nygaard, 100,925
10. Jon Broderick, 91,200
Former Championship Event winners such as Riess (70,225) and Chris Moneymaker (69,850) are through to Day 2, but Greg Merson will have some work to do on his short 7125 stack.
Day 1B will kick off at noon Las Vegas time and, once the late registration ends at the dinner break today, we will have a sense of just how big the 2014 WSOP Championship Event is going to be.
