Home / Poker News June 2011 / 2011 WSOP – Event #1
2011 WSOP – Event #1
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2011-06-02 12:55
As usual, the
2011 WSOP kicked off with the $500 Casino Employees event, on Tuesday. Although many were worried that player numbers would take a huge hit on account of the
online poker industry’s woes, the first event shrugged off those fears. Even though some people at the scene reported a less than stellar turn-out, the numbers came to confirm that interest was alive and well: 850 players coughed up the $500 buy-in, which marked a 129 player increase from last year’s starting field.
Hoai Pham, the reigning champion, was there. Ty Stewart played as well, together with Matt Savage and Jack McClelland. Jean Robert Bellande couldn’t have normally entered, but because he became an Aria ambassador a while ago, he qualified and he took full advantage of the situation.
Unfortunately for him and for the rest of the players mentioned above, they all failed to survive the first day of action.
Thanh Ngo finished the first day with one of the largest stacks of chips. She got most of his chips off two players in a single hand in which a massive pot developed. The other two players had pocket 10s and pocket Ks respectively against Ngo’s A,Q. An A on the river gave her the pot and took her stack over the 101k chip mark.
Jordan Dhooghe was the one who clinched the chip leader’s spot at the end of the first day. He took down a lucky pot to get rolling and he never looked back. On a flop of Q,6,4 rainbow, he shoved all-in holding 7,5 for the straight draw. The opponent that called him had pocket 8s and a seemingly unbreakable grip on the pot. All Dhooghe could hope for was to land a 6-outer, which is exactly what perspired: the 8d on the river gave him the pot.
Dhooghe finished the day with a stack of 129k chips.
