Day 1 of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic attracted 391 players to the Bellagio in Las Vegas on Friday. That’s a sizable bump over last year’s combined field of 329, strong suggestion that dropping the buy-in from $15k to $10k was the right move. Good thing registration doesn’t close until 5pm PST on Saturday, because once they pass 400 players, 100 players will finish in the money (compared to just 50 if less than nine more players show up Saturday).
With Day 1 done, 2010 PokerStar Caribbean Adventure fifth-place finisher Ryan D’Angelo is our chip leader at 192.5k, but Amirouddine Alibay is not far off the pace with 185.2k. Other names of note in the top 10 include Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Ivey and Justin Young. Those going home early included Vanessa Selbst, Justin Bonomo, Joe Sebok and WSOP 2010 third-place finisher Joseph Cheong. The tournament is scheduled to wrap Dec. 8.
Day 1 of the UK & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) Galway finally got underway, after Thursday’s scheduled Day 1 was binned due to snow conditions that would have prevented most penguins from reaching the venue. Despite that, 266 players waddled up to the felts with their £1k buy-ins tucked under their ski masks, but most of them seem to have had frigid fingers and/or brains, cuz only 75 players were still alive at the end of the day. Peter Murphy is chip leader with 187.5k, with Kenneth Forkan (163k), Vinny Gavin (160k) and Peter Barrable (159k) hot on his tail. Sadly, Liv Boeree evidently had somewhere warmer to go, so she won’t be back on Saturday.
Across the Irish Sea, Rupert Graham has learned that while three sixes may be the number of the beast, four sixes will earn you a bad beat jackpot of £222k. Graham was playing at the Casino at The Empire in London, when his quad-sixes were trumped by Halit Avoyli’s quad kings. Graham collects £111k of the total, Avoyli got £55k (and the pot), the remaining six players at the table each claimed £7,500 and the other eight players in the room got £1,400 apiece just for breathing the same air. Nice work if you can get it…
Meanwhile, Commerce Casino has released the full schedule for the LA Poker Classic. Check here to learn exactly when and where you’ll be hitting the rail.
