Home / Poker News September 2009 / WSOPE Day 1B – Steve Zolotow finishes on top
WSOPE Day 1B – Steve Zolotow finishes on top
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2009-09-28 12:44
As anticipated, Day 1B of the WSOPE Main Event yielded a bigger number of registrants than Day 1A. 175 players coughed up the buy-in and joined the green felt hostilities. Day 1B set the record straight about the total number of participants and about the prize-pool. 36 players will finish in the money and first place will be worth £801,603.
Steve Zolotow finished as the Day 1B chip leader, thanks to a last minute push, joining Brian Powell and Jason Mercier atop the Day 1 leader board.
If Day 1A attracted a whole bunch of “name” pros, Day 1B did probably even better. Daniel Negreanu was among the starters, together with 2007 Main Event champion Annette Obrestad, Barry Greenstein, Peter Eastgate, Josh Arieh, Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Ferguson, current WSOPE Main Event Champion John Juanda and David Williams.
As I said, Steve Zolotow darted into the chip lead thanks to a huge pot he took down near the end of the day. Holding pocket 3s on a flop of Q,J,3, Zolotow was looking to get his opponent all-in. Fortunately for him, the other guy had flopped bottom two pair and it wasn’t exactly difficult to convince him that he should get all his chips into the middle. No help came for the victim on the turn or the river and Zolotow settled into the chip lead.
Other players who had excellent Day 1Bs were Noah Boeken, Daniel Negreanu, Steven Fung and Antoine Saout.
Jean Robert Bellande on the other hand found the day a struggle from beginning to end. First, he had trouble raising the buy-in. Then, after he succeeded, he got into a tussle with Scotty Nguyen on his very first hand. Nguyen is not exactly the ideal opponent to get all your money in against and Bellande committed the mistake of nearly pot-committing himself before he was forced to fold. That pretty much meant the end of his tournament. Desperately short-stacked, he held on for a few more hands but eventually busted out in a hand in which his A,K fell to an opponent’s Q,J.
Word has it, just to make Bellande’s unlucky day complete, the dealer nullified a bet he’d placed on roulette on his way out, a bet which had been destined for the winning number.
Jennifer Harman suffered a bad beat too to bust out, her pocket Kings cracked by an opponent’s A,Q which proceeded to land a flush.
Joe Sebok, who’d recently signed an endorsement deal with UB, failed to make it to Day 2 too. He was followed to the rail by Vitaly Lunkin, Neil Channing, Carlos Mortensen and JC Tran.
