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May 15th 2006
Cream rises to the top on Day One of WPT Season V
The new WPT season kicked off at The Mirage Poker Showdown yesterday and if the first day’s play is anything to go by the forthcoming season promises to be a cracker.
With huge crowds gathered at the rail to watch the action the event kicked off in style, and the players were clearly eager to entertain. Jennifer Harman was perhaps a little too eager, as she became the first big name player to part with her chips, knocked out after just fifteen minutes.
384 players began Day One with hopes of winning the $1.2 million first prize. 189 of those players went home ruing their bad luck or bad play, and looking forward to their next shot at a million bucks.
Many of those players were household names. Allen Cunningham was on the wrong end of a bad beat when he got knocked out (he flopped a set of sevens but was beaten by a runner runner straight) while T.J Cloutier was a victim of bad timing when he ran into pocket aces when all-in with A-J.
But it wasn’t all bad running for the big names. Daniel Negreanu was the recipient of some miraculous fortune when all-in with As-9h against Tc-Ts. He hit four spades in a row to double up with seven minutes of play remaining. And John Juanda flopped a set of queens against the unfortunate Lee Watkinson, who had flopped a set of jacks.
In fact despite the many big name casualties the top of the leaderboard was packed with familiar faces. David Williams, runner up to Greg Raymer in the 2004 World Series of Poker ended the day on top with $180,000 chips and he was joined in the top 11 by Robert Mizrachi (brother to “The Grinder”), John Juanda (5 WPT final tables), Patrik Antonius (runner up in season four’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic), Huck Seed (winner of the 1996 WSOP main-event), Minh Nguyen (holder of two WSOP bracelets) and Gavin Smith, the Mirage Poker Showdown defending champion. It’s still very early of course, but the signs are we could have a recognisable final table in four days time.
Watch this space to see how the tournament develops.
Chip Counts
David Williams $180,000
Robert Mizrachi $105,000
Shane Schleger $95,000
John Juanda $95,000
Steve Frederick $90,000
Patrik Antonius $80,000
Huck Seed $63,000
Minh Nguyen $61,000
Bill Edler $60,000
Gavin Smith $60,000
Big Name casualties on Day One
Men "The Master" Nguyen, Erick Lindgren, Tuan Le, Dan Harrington, Amir Vahedi, Freddy Deeb, Mike "The Mouth" Matusow, Martin De Knijff, Victor Ramdin, Todd Brunson, Young Phan, John D'Agostino, Mimi Tran, Evelyn Ng, Scotty Nguyen, Surrinder Sunar, Erik Siedel, Chau Giang, and Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari.
Submitted: 15/05/2006 11:54:09
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