Home / Poker News April 2010 / WPT World Championship – Day 1 report
WPT World Championship – Day 1 report
Posted by: Jo Martin - Mon, 2010-04-19 15:40
The WPT’s 8th annual World Championship event kicked off on Sunday at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, having drawn a starting field of 161 players. The numbers were quite a bit off last year’s pace, when no fewer than 388 hopefuls showed up for the
poker tournament. The $25,000 buy-in certainly acted as a restriction for most under bankrolled candidates, and that meant that those in attendance would indeed represent the cream of the crop of the poker world. All three past champions were present at the tables. Carlos Mortensen, who took almost $4 million in 2007, David Chiu, who won almost $3.5 million in 2008 and Yevgeniy Timoshenko who won $2.1 million last year.
All three players finished Day 1 with healthy stacks, but Timoshenko led the pack with 277k chips. His title defense appeared to be on the right track, although David Benyamine finished Day 1 with more chips than him (291,275 to be exact). Brian Lemke had a nice day 1 run too. He ended the day in possession of a 298k stack, but Shawn Buchannan was the one who stole the headlines, clinching the chip lead with a 388k chip effort.
Brian Lemke’s got most of his chips off Vivek Rajkumar and another guy in a hand in which he sent both his opponents to the rail, Beth Shak was involved in the hand too, but she was wise enough to get out of the way before Lemke’s turned set of Ks made short work of Rajkumar’s flopped set of Qs and the other player’s two pair. This hand gave Lemke 320k chips, which meant he could take it easy for the rest of the day.
His chip leaders’ position wasn’t safe though. Shawn Buchannan shoved all-in holding pocket Qs against Kevin Saul’s pocket Ks. Despite the adverse odds, Buchannan made a set on the flop and sailed into the lead with Lady Luck’s guidance, eliminating Saul in the process.
138 players survived the first Day of WPT World Championship action. Phil Ivey and Andrew Lichtenberger were both among the survivors and so was Cliff Josephy. Ivey finished in 8th place with a 230k stack.
Annette Obrestad and McLean Karr weren’t that lucky though. They both bit the dust on day 1, together with Scott Seiver.
