Home / Poker News May 2011 / WPT World Championship – Day 1 Report
WPT World Championship – Day 1 Report
Posted by: Randy Williams - Mon, 2011-05-16 16:10
The WPT’s World Championship, which kicked off on Saturday in the Bellagio in Las Vegas, is quite possibly the biggest and most prestigious live event of the year, especially in light of the fact that Black Friday has cast an unsightly dark shadow over the
2011 WSOP.
188 players coughed up the $25k buy-in on the first day of the event, among them some of the biggest names in poker. Doyle Brunson - rumored to have just ended his relationship with Doyle’s Room – was there, together with Justin Smith, John Juanda, Eugene Katchalov, Daniel Negreanu, Chau Giang, Barry Greenstein, Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Michael Mizrachi. Most of these “name” players will return to action on day 2.
Of the former WPT Championship winners, Carlos Mortensen was the only one who bit the dust on Saturday. Timoshenko advanced to day 2, together with Martin de Knijff and David Chiu.
Mortensen’s demise came courtesy of Jason Somerville. Somerville himself got sent to the rail later in the day, unable to capitalize on the chips he’d picked up from Mortensen. David Williams, the reigning champion, didn’t mount a title defense on Day 1: he will probably only join the fray on day 2.
All-in-all, there weren’t that many players shoved aside on day 1. There were only a few unlucky “name” players who got eliminated, among them Frank Kassela, Alessio Isaia and David Benyamine.
Antonio Esfandiari was bounced too, by none other than David Baker.
The hand which led to the Magician’s demise saw the chips shoved into the middle by both parties concerned on a flop of Q,9,8. There were two hearts on the flop and Baker had 10h, 7h in his pocket for a 4-card flush. Esfandiari had A,Q for top pair top kicker, but another heart on the board meant that he was left in the dust.
Christian Harder finished the day with the largest stack of chips, having managed to amass a stack of 249,975.
