A total of 201 players took to the felts for the first ever $40,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament, commemorating the 40th running of the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Among those in the field, whose champion will take home $1.9 million, were numerous PocketFivers, including the top three players in the Online Poker Rankings. Shaun shaundeeb Deeb, who sits at number two worldwide, could be found in the middle of the pack after play resumed following the first break. Already eliminated from the tournament is Scott r_a_y Montgomery, who finished fifth in last year’s WSOP Main Event and became one of the original November Nine in the process. PocketFivesLive.com, which provides WSOP coverage of online poker players, is camped out at the Rio in Las Vegas for every turn of the card.The man who sits atop the Online Poker Rankings, Steve gboro780 Gross, had his work cut out for him. Found at his starting table were Brian aba20 Townsend, Greg “FBT” Mueller, 10-time WSOP bracelet winner Doyle Brunson, Shannon ShannonShorr Shorr, and 2009 National Heads-Up Poker Championship winner Huck Seed. Gross’ run through the $40,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament would end at the hands of Brunson after running A-9 into “Texas Dolly’s” A-Q. The hand boosted Brunson to over 200,000.
World Poker Tour (WPT) Season VI Player of the Year Jonathan FieryJustice Little (pictured at left) was in attendance at the Rio. However, his stay lasted just over two levels, as fellow PocketFiver Lex RaSZi Veldhuis served as the executioner on two critical hands. In the first, Little’s pocket kings ran into Veldhuis’ pocket aces. In a similar situation that occurred shortly thereafter, Little fell short with queens against Veldhuis’ kings and was sent packing from the Amazon Room.Christian charder Harder tangled with Jason Rosenkrantz as the first break begun in the $40,000 buy-in tournament. Harder called a bet of 25,000 from Rosenkrantz on a J-6-5-9-J board. The PocketFiver’s foe flipped over J-9 for a boat and Harder mucked. He is fresh off a fourth place effort in the Season VII WPT Championship, where he cashed for $572,000 in a tournament ultimately won by PocketFiver Yevgeniy atimos Timoshenko. The WPT Championship winner is now looking to log his first WSOP cash on American soil in this event. You can relive Timoshenko’s WPT Championship victory and the last year’s worth of tournaments in the Coverage Archive on PocketFivesLive.com.
Sent to the rails early was PocketFiver Tom durrrr Dwan (pictured at right). The elimination came shortly before the first break of the day. On a board of 8-5-3-2, Dwan check-raised David “The Dragon” Pham all-in with his tournament life on the line. Pham called with pocket kings, while Dwan showed pocket sixes. A six or four failed to come on the river and Dwan was one of the first casualties of the high-stakes event. On the other end of the spectrum was PocketFiver Justin ZeeJustin Bonomo. A card-carrying member of Team Bodog, Bonomo doubled up early on after flopping a set with pocket deuces on a board of 10-9-2-6-3. His opponent, Per Ummer, boosted the poker prodigy’s arsenal to nearly 250,000.PocketFivers that can be found in the 201 player field include Barry barryg1 Greenstein, Amit amak316 Makhija, and Adam a_junglen Junglen. As of 8:00pm ET, select chip counts from PocketFivers were as follows, according to coverage found on WorldSeriesofPoker.com:
David Bakes Baker - 446,000
Justin ZeeJustin Bonomo – 275,000
Vivek Psyduck Rajkumar – 255,000
Brian aba20 Townsend – 225,000
Noah fouruhaterz Schwartz – 190,000
Jeff ActionJeff Garza – 145,000
Luke IWEARGOGGLES Staudenmaier – 140,000
Amit amak316 Makhija – 140,000
Alex alexjacob Jacob – 135,000
Yevgeniy atimos Timoshenko – 130,000
Chris moorman1 Moorman – 126,000
Corwin mig.com Mackey – 125,000
Brian tsarrast Rast – 125,000
Jason treysfull21 Mercier – 124,000
Marco CrazyMarco Johnson – 122,000
Mike SirWatts Watson – 120,000
Annie Duke – 113,000
Shaun shaundeeb Deeb – 107,000
Bertrand ElkY Grospellier – 102,000
Adam a_junglen Junglen – 102,000
Chad M8kingmoves Batista – 95,000
Barry barryg1 Greenstein – 93,000
Justin Boosted J Smith – 91,000
Shannon ShannonShorr Shorr – 77,500
Blake Balla-B13 Cahail – 70,000
Visit complete WSOP coverage on PocketFivesLive.com. We’ll look forward to reporting on the success of players from the online poker community.
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