Print
E-mail
Share
delicious
digg
Newsvine
Facebook
Stumble
Technorati
reddit
Fark
twitter
Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Las Vegas Sun
Phil Ivey, of Las Vegas, eyes his opponents Tuesday during the 7th day of competition at the World Series of Poker Main Event at the Rio.
Sun Coverage
Sun Archives
- Unique announcers and massive crew combine for memorable ESPN broadcasts (7-15-2009)
- Women make strong showing in Main Event (7-14-2009)
- Poker players relax with massage at table (7-11-2009)
- ESPN’s feature table provides as much publicity as profitability (7-8-2009)
- Oldest player exits World Series of Poker (7-7-2009)
- Hundreds of poker players turned away from main event (7-6-2009)
- Poker pro Annie Duke doesn’t like her nickname (7-1-2009)
- Bach pulls out marathon HORSE victory (7-1-2009)
- Poker’s HORSE a serious game (6-26-2009)
- Mike Caro: 'Mad genius' of poker (6-19-2009)
- WSOP props odds offer insight into tournament (6-12-2009)
- Behind the scenes, tournament has stable of 850 dealers (6-6-2009)
Only one more days separates the 27 remaining players from a spot at the World Series of Poker Main Event final table and a guaranteed $1.26 million payday.
It took nearly nearly 10 hours of play on Day 6 Tuesday to eliminate another 37 players from the starting crop of 64 players.
Some of those busting out on Tuesday included 2007 Player of the Year Tom Schneider in 52nd place, 2008 November Niner Dennis Phillips in 45th place, PokerRoad CEO Joe Sebok in 56th place and former gold bracelet winner Blair Rodman in 34th place.
Joe Ward was the last player eliminated Tuesday when his Ace-King fell to Jamie Robbins' Ace-Queen thanks to a queen on the river. Ward earned $253,941 for his 28th place effort.
Now all players remaining in the tournament are guaranteed at least $352,832.
The lone woman in the field, Leo Margets, struggled for pots all day as her chip stack fell to 1,530,000, leaving her in 26th place heading into Wednesday.
Top pro and Las Vegas resident Phil Ivey is in fourth place with 11,350,000. He will have to make some moves to catch current leader Darvin Moon, a pine logger from Maryland.
This is Moon's first visit to Las Vegas, but after winning his Main Event seat in a qualifier at a casino in Wheeling, West Virginia, he is now poised to become a millionaire.
"It’s easy to play when you get hands like I was getting," Moon said. "It’s just unbelievable. It’s like a dream."
Play will resume Wednesday at noon with blinds at 50,000-100,000 and 10,000 antes for just seven minutes before moving to 60,000-120,000 blinds with 15,000 antes. The average chip stack is 7,215,556.
The tournament will last until only nine players remain no matter how long that takes. Those final nine will then return to the Rio on Nov. 10 for a live broadcast of the final table on ESPN.
The top-10 chip counts are as follows:
1. Darvin Moon (Oakland, MD) - 20,160,000
2. Billy Kopp (Erlanger, KY) - 15,970,000
3. Steven Begleiter (Chappaqua, NY) - 11,885,000
4. Phil Ivey (Las Vegas, NV) - 11,350,000
5. Kevin Schaffel (Coral Springs, FL) - 11,245,000
6. Antoine Saout (Saimr Martin des Champs, France) - 11,135,000
7. Jeff Shulman (Las Vegas, NV) - 10,170,000
8. Eric Buchman (Valley Stream, NY) - 10,005,000
9. Jamie Robbins (San Diego, CA) - 9,795,000
10. Ben Lamb (Las Vegas, NV) - 9,410,000
The remaining 27 players will start at three tables. These are Wednesday's seating assignments:
Table 1
Jesse Haabak - 2,750,000
Ian Tavelli - 4,385,000
James Calderaro - 6,475,000
Jonathan Tamayo - 3,300,000
Warren Zackey - 5,485,000
Eric Buchman - 10,005,000
Leo Margets - 1,530,000
Tommy Vedes - 5,070,000
James Akenhead - 8,615,000
Table 2
Phil Ivey - 11,350,000
Jeff Shulman - 10,170,000
George Caragiorgas - 1,615,000
Nick Maimone - 1,545,000
Andrew Lichtenberger - 5,625,000
Marco Mattes - 5,285,000
Joseph Cada - 6,565,000
Darvin Moon - 20,160,000
Jordan Smith - 4,510,000
Table 3
Jamie Robbins - 9,795,000
Antonio Esfandiari - 4,470,000
Francois Balmigere - 1,440,000
Ludovic Lacay - 5,610,000
Steven Begleiter - 11,885,000
Ben Lamb - 9,410,000
Antoine Saout - 11,135,000
Kevin Schaffel - 11,245,000
Billy Kopp - 15,970,000
Good coverage Steve.
Thanks judgesmales. Are you a big poker fan and/or player?
How do they decide which players sit at which table? Is it purely random? Seems like Eric Buchman got the best of the draw as he is the only player in the top 10 at his table. Table 2 looks tough with the top seed and both Ivey and Shulman. Was that just the way the ping pong balls came out or is there some formula to this?
Each day the table assignments are randomized.
As players are eliminated, however, changing tables can happen a few different ways.
When a whole table has to split up, the new seating assignments are random. When just one or two players have to move, they try to keep a player in "bad position" as in, next big-blind, in that same position if possible.
That will leave some lopsided tables. For instance, today when two players busted out on the same table, they moved chip-leader Darvin Moon to a rather low-stacked Table 1 to make three tables of eight players. Those players at table 1 were not too happy to see a large stack walking up to push them around.