First, an interview with the Commish from SkyPoker\’s James Hartigan about Day 1d (Thanks to DesD on 2+2 for the link):
Day 2a concluded with 607 players remaining and Andrew Gaw the chip leader with 386,800 in chips. In an interesting story, Eric Cloutier, who was reported chip leader at the end of day 1a with 150,750 in chips, turned out to have 15,075 to start the day. He ends today in 2nd place with 383,500 in chips. Other notables: Greg Mueller (287,300), Andy Black (215,700), Mike Sexton (169,000), Kara Scott (139,500), Jimmy Fricke (138,300), Tom Schneider (123,700), Greg Raymer (95,900), Jason Alexander (73,700), Sam Farha (67,500), Erik Seidel (55,600) and Roland de Wolfe (21,200). To view the entire list of day 2a survivors, follow this link.
The Mystery of Amazon Green 156
The day 2 situation brings up this interesting case, especially since it\’s the very last table in the Amazon Room. As I mentioned to Pauly, there were 4 players on the day 1d entrants list who were seated in the 10 seat, all of them in the Amazon Green section:
Jeppe Nielsen – Amazon Green 143/10
Joe Reitman – Amazon Green 144/10
Marco Bertaccini – Amazon Green 145/10
Dale Poynter – Amazon Green 146/10
To be fair, only Poynter\’s table was actually 10-handed, although in Reitman\’s case, that table only seated 7 players (according to the list). Another interesting table is Amazon Green 156, which is seated as follows:
LANDAU, MICHAEL
ERNA, SALVATORE
GASPARD, JEAN
HACHEM, TONY
MICHNIK, MICHAEL
HARRISON, AUDLEY
SEED, HUCK
MORRISON, KIRK
ODONNELL, KEVIN
Gaspard and Seed both had been guaranteed a seat, for winning WSOP-C New Orleans and the NBC Heads-Up event respectively, as noted by the Commish in the above video. Audley Harrison is a known British boxer who has played a few events this year at the WSOP. Some of the rumors that were flying around the Rio yesterday were about some players getting preferential treatment. I\’ll leave it to the reader to guess which names on the above list fit that role. Another name worth mentioning is Kevin O\’Donnell, who apparently was shut out, according to Gary Wise\’s article on ESPN.com:
Frustration was boiling over among those who felt their dreams of championship glory moving beyond reach, many feeling betrayed by what they saw as insufficient warning of what might be going down.
\”I think that Harrah\’s communications was awful,\” said Kevin O\’Donnell, a professional circuit regular who\’d gone home to Arizona for Independence Day. \”If they\’d warned us better about this possibility, we\’d have made the needed adjustments. There are a lot of things they\’re going to say that are true, but ultimately the communications broke down. As a business person, I understand you can only fit in so many people, but they should have done a better job of letting people know they were going to have these space issues.\”
Meanwhile, Palansky was sending out a follow up e-mail at 12:08 p.m. entitled \”WSOP Main Event – Flight 1D is a SELLOUT.\”
Yet O\’Donnell did get a seat — at Amazon Green 156 — and returns today with more than 72,000 in chips.
Day 2b gets underway at noon today, playing 4 two-hour levels. A not exact list of chip counts and where they\’ll be sitting can be found here. If you\’re in the Amazon Room and poker room, you\’ll be playing 9-handed. Buzio\’s and any of the other tournament rooms will mostly start 10-handed, although they\’ll be breaking tables as fast as they can to get to 9-handed as quickly as possible. One of the tables not in use at the moment, Amazon Green 156.
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