Home / Poker News April 2009 / Caesar’s Palace WSOP Circuit event – Day 1 report
Caesar’s Palace WSOP Circuit event – Day 1 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2009-04-29 14:32
With the WSOP upon us, every live event going down till the start of the first WSOP side event will count as a warm up session for the big one. That’s exactly what the WSOP Circuit’s Caesar’s Palace event is for many of the ‘name’ pros who attend. With so many of the world’s top players congregating in Las Vegas for the Big Dance – which is set to kick off at the end of May – the Caesar’s Palace circuit event’s field was bolstered significantly. Kathy Liebert, Gavin Smith, Johnny Chan, Justin Bonomo and David Pham were all among the 187 players who bellied up to the tables on Day 1.
At the end of the day, only 88 players were still standing and many of the name pros were at the rail.
Jeremiah DeGreef, the player who already took down an event in this WSOP Circuit stop, sat atop the leader-board as the dust settled around him, having mustered a 152,600 stack, significantly bigger than that of the second place finisher.
Johnny Chan was one of the early casualties of the event. He became the victim of an attempted bluff which backfired. Kathy Liebert and Chan saw a flop of 7,A,8 which saw Liebert fire out a bet. Chan called and he called on the turn too. Liebert checked the river, a move which prompted Chan to go all-in. Liebert quickly called and Chan mucked without ever taking a look at his opponent’s cards.
David Pham had a much better day though. He busted players left and right from the very beginning, most on good starting hands, others on lucky draws. In a crucial hand, he managed to fill his open ended straight draw against an opponent’s flopped set.
Justin Bonomo, Amir Wahedi and Michael Mizrachi have also survived the first day of action.
Steve Dannenman also seemed on-route to day two, albeit on a short stack but it wasn’t meant to be. Almost at the very end of the day, Dannenman got all-in somehow, holding 6,7o against Matt Stout’s 10,10. The board missed both players and Dannenman was out just before the action was called.
