As was predicted, tonight's event was a star-studded one, with many of poker's top names venturing out for a chance to claim the Seven Card Stud Championship.
As it tends to go with limit poker, it took a while for meaningful swings to occur. But when the stakes got high enough we started to see some action transpire. Tom Dwan, Erick Lindgren, Cyndy Violette and Matt Hawrilenko all made earlier exits than they would have preferred and a number of others followed.
Going into Day 2 our leader is Michael Mizrachi with 191,900. However, Vladimir Schmelev, his heads-up opponent from the $50,000 Players' Championship is right trailing closely with 180,000. We're sure their egos and bank accounts will be up for a rematch. Last year's winner, Freddie Ellis, is staying alive with 89,000, and last year's runner up, Eric Drache, is sitting on 57,000.
Join us for coverage from the Amazon Room at 3:00 tomorrow as our 88 remaining players work towards that elusive final table.
Daniel Negreanu has been running super hot with starting hands today in this Stud championship. He's been rolled up -- starting with three of a kind -- four or five times. On one of the last hands of the night, Negreanu started rolled up again, this time with jacks. He made four jacks by fifth street. Even better for Negreanu, David Grey started with rolled up sixes and also made quads. The two players put in four bets on the river, where Grey finally saw the bad news. It was a fitting end to the day for Negreanu. He'll bring a very healthy stack back tomorrow, although he won't be the leader.
There are ten minutes on the clock. The staff have determined that the number of additional hands to be played at each table is three. Then we're done for the night.
Huck Seed was short-stacked when he got all his money in against Bill Munley during a series of raises, but was not able to overcome the two pair Munley had made on sixth street.
Last year, the final two players in this event were Eric Drache and Freddie Ellis. Drache lost a heart-breaker to finish in second place, ceding the title to Ellis.
Ellis is cruising along with about 60,000 chips, and now Drache has that many too. Drache completed third street in a recent pot, then led the betting on every single street. He managed to chase Eli Elezra out of the pot on fifth street, but a third player called all the way down. At the river, that player tanked for about a minute, considering whether Drache really had the hand he was representing. In the end he called, and Drache turned up for two pair, kings and tens.
We're a long, long, loooooooong way from a re-match, but two gizzled veterans of Stud are showing that their 1-2 finish last year was no fluke.
Doyle Bunson has just bounced towards the top of the pack. In this hand, he completed and got raised by a player in Seat 3. After two other players folded, Brunson made the call, saying "let's play heads up." Brunson called a bet on fourth street and raised a bet on fifth street. On sixth street, Brunson called a bet, but raised a bet once more on seventh street.
Once Brunson tabled his full house, his opponent threw his cards at the dealer. The win put Brunson up to about 114,000 in chips.
Kirk Morrison started things off on third street by completing. Alan Boston looked at Morrison on his right and Amnon Filippi on his left before folding. Filippi raised folding everyone else out of the hand. He and Morrison then got enough chips in the middle to put Filippi all in.
Filippi was drawing with buried nines and an ace against Morrison's buried kings and ten. By sixth street Morrison made kings and sixes, leaving Filippi with a squeeze only to a nine at the river.
"Four across," said Filippi. But it wasn't a nine. He drew a ten and was busted from the tournament.
"You guys had me squeezed good. I had 10-J-Q. If you had more chips I would have gambled," noted Boston after the hand.
Dan Heimiller offered some solace to Filippi. "You can call [Morrison] a cock with no penalty. Just say you were reading his hat." Morrison is indeed wearing a hat with a picture of a rooster on it.
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for two pair, kings and tens.
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