“A casual relationship with reality”
Categories: Poker
The $10,000 No-Limit main event at the World Series of Poker is underway. It's really exciting, the field this year is about 5,600 strong, over twice last years impossibly huge field.
In fact, the field is so large that they had to have the first day spread out over three days. Yeah, you read that right. They divided up the field into three groups, and had each group play one day each.
There's a lot happening. Many of the pros are out already, including the man who literally wrote the book on poker Doyle Brunson, and Dan Harrington, my new favorite player. Harrington going out is especially disappointing since he made the final table in both of the previous years, which is a nearly impossibly achievement. Brunson and Harrington both got standing ovations when they were busted out. Other pros out include Daniel Negreanu (the WSOP player of the year last year), Annie Duke, Antonio Esfarandi, and a whole bunch more that I can't remember. Jennifer Harman, one of the best female players in the world, busted out on a horrible beat when her full house was caught by someone who caught a straight flush on the river. Ouch!
Phil Ivey, another of my favorite players, is sitting comfortably towards the front of the pack, and that's big news, but not the biggest or the most surprising.
But the real big news is how well last year's winner, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer is doing. Nearing the end of the third day, he was the second player to cross the million chip count, and he's currently the chip-leader. That's absolutely astounding, no one, not even Raymer himself, predicted it. It pretty much proves that Raymer's win last year wasn't an extremely lucky street, the man has some world-class skills.
Still a long way to go for him, though. He's got over a million, but he needs about 56 million to win. Whoever does win will be taking home $7.5 million in cash.
posted by Mark Kawakami at July 12, 2005, 12:07 AM // permalink // (1) Comments