Home / Poker News September 2009 / WSOPE London Main Event – Hellmuth enters the scene in style
WSOPE London Main Event – Hellmuth enters the scene in style
Posted by: James Carter. - Mon, 2009-09-28 12:42
With three of the WSOPE’s events out of the way, the time for the highlight of the series, the Main Event has come. Featuring a £10,000 buy-in and a starting field packed with name pros, the WSOPE Main Event is quick to tread in the footsteps of the WSOP Big Dance.
Day 1A, the day 1 flight expected to be the smaller, featured 155 registrants. There was nothing ordinary about this starting field though. Previous WSOPE Main Event Champions, Annette Obrestad and John Juanda were there, together with Doyle Brunson, Mike Matusow, Erik Seidel, Jason Mercier and November Nine members Phil Ivey and James Akenhead. In a re-enactment of his WSOP Main Event entry this summer in Las Vegas, Phil Hellmuth showed up as a Roman Emperor again. He was led into Leicester Square by a detachment of roman guards, riding a UB branded chariot and accompanied by the throng of scantily attired roman beauties no proper emperor would ever leave home without.
PokerStars’ Jason Mercier ended Day 1A close to the top of the provisional chip leader board. He’d accumulated 189,725 chips, largely thanks to a late pot he scored against Ben Grundy. The two players shoved all-in on an A,K vs J,J match-up, and Mercier managed to catch a K on the flop to make a significant addition to his already towering stack.
Martin Hansen took out two opponents in one move, taking down a huge pot in a 3-way hand. His A,Q went up against Roland De Wolfe’s pocket jacks and another guy’s pocket nines. The board fell 8,J,10,K,5 and Hansen’s Broadway straight was complete.
Sami Kelopuro was among those who shot above the 100K mark at the end of the day. Doyle Brunson did well too. He’d amassed about 92,000 chips before the day was called. Phil Hellmuth’s poker performance was extremely modest, especially when measured up against the awesomeness of his entrance.
Other players who finished above the 100k mark were: Victor Blom, Jonathan Aguiar, and Tommy Pavlicek.
With so many big names in the field, it was inevitable that at least some of them hit the rail on Day 1A. Vanessa Rousso was among those eliminated, joining Phil Ivey, Huck Seed, Patrik Antonius, Hoyt Corkins and Robert Mizrachi on the sidelines.
Online poker phenomenon and nosebleed limit regular Tom Dwan found the rail in a particularly unpleasant way. He locked horns with EPT Barcelona second place finisher Marc Goodwin, on a suspicious-looking flop of Jh,10h,5h. A 3c came on the turn and a 10 on the river which spelt doom for the New Jersey Wonderkid. He made a boat with his 10,5, so he was more than willing to push all his chips into the middle. The problem was Goodwin was just as eager to shove, and when he turned over J,J for the bigger boat, durrrr’s WSOPE Main Event run was over. The WSOPE Main Event hostilities will resume on Day 1B.
