Home / Poker News September 2009 / WSOPE London - Event #3 underway
WSOPE London - Event #3 underway
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2009-09-25 11:18
Event #3 of the 2009 WSOPE, the £5,000 double –chance PL Omaha one, drew 154 players to the tables of the Empire Casino. Though smallish, the field was a very select one: some of the best live and online poker players in the world were present, therefore, wining the event would amount to much more for the eventual winner than a bracelet and the first place prize. The bragging right for this one would no doubt be massive.
The buy-in was a £5,000 one (hence the small and select starting field) and the prize-pool grew to £770,000.
Starting stacks weren’t all that deep, but given the size of the starting field they were about proper. Players started out with 10,000 chips in front of them and a chip that they could trade in for a 10,000 chip rebuy anytime, during the first three levels of play.
The professionals playing in the event didn’t disappoint: as soon as the action kicked off, a breakneck pace was imposed and it was upheld till the day’s end, when - of the 154 registrants – only 36 were still in contention.
As luck would have it, despite the presence of all those live poker pros, an online player would clinch the first day’s provisional chip lead. Finland’s Jani Vilmunen (known online as KObyTAPOUT) had amassed a 300,000 chip stack, far ahead of second place Sorel Mizzi’s 155,000 chip tower.
The two players who had disputed the bracelet of event #2 only a few hours earlier, Robin Keston and eventual winner Erik Cajelais, were also present in the field. None of them would be able to repeat their previous performance though, as they both busted out within the first few levels of play.
Chris Ferguson, who did well in event #1 (where he eventually busted in 15th place) was also there, unlucky enough to be seated at the same table with Allen Cunningham, Joe Beevers, Jeff Madsen and Chris Bjorin. Despite the unusually high concentration of “name pros” at all the other tables, Ferguson’s table was particularly tough and thus considered the Table of Death by observers.
Phil Ivey, by far the best rated November Nine member was there as well. His day didn’t last long at all though. Saun Deeb bounced him only a few hands after play began. A similar fate would befall Vitaly Lunkin, Jeff Madsen and another WSOP heavyweight: Jeffrey Lisandro.
Sandra Naujoks on the other hand did extremely well, together with Sorel Mizzi (who eventually finished 2nd) and Noah Boeken.
Dave Caghan joined these players atop the provisional leader-board too.
The pace of the action was unrelenting all day, and before the final bell, railbirds could witness another spectacular confrontation: the one between Tom Dwan and Ashton Griffin (known online as theASHMAN103), the two players quite familiar with each-other from Full Tilt’s nosebleed stakes cash tables.
Both of them survived to fight another day, though Dwan barely: he was left with 35,000 chips. Griffin on the other hand went to bed with 120,000 chips in his stack.
Howard Lederer finished 3rd with 135,000 chips as Griffin’s 120k was enough for 4th place.
