Online Poker

The first ever Mandalay Bay Poker Championship kicked off today, and the biggest names in the sport including Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, Evelyn Ng, Barry Greenstein, John Juanda, Dan Harrington, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, David Williams, T.J. Cloutier, Jennifer Harman, and Joe “Atticus Finch” Sebok. vying for the $1,033,440 first place prize

The field of 349 had a little Hollywood flavor mixed in, with actresses Shannon Elizabeth and Jennifer Tilly along with actor turned director Nick Cassavetes.


With $50-$100 blinds and $20,000 chip stacks the $10,000 buy-in event favored conservative play and all the top pros survived Level 1.

When play started 2 tables had all the attention. Table 14 featured Mirage Poker Showdown 4th place finisher David Williams (Seat 3), Kenna James (Seat 5), Mark Seif (Seat 6), Jennifer Tilly (Seat 7), J.C. Tran (Seat 8), and T.J. Cloutier (Seat 10). On the other side of the room, Erik Seidel (Seat 3), Mike “The Mouth” Matusow (Seat 4), Tim Phan (Seat 6), David Singer (Seat 8) and Phil Laak (Seat 10) battled at Table 39.

The first casualties were John Phan, John D'Agostino, Laak, Joe Bartholdi, Mimi Tran, Barry Greenstein and Jennifer Harman all out before the first break.

Gavin Smith continued his fantastic run at the felt staying near the top of the leaderboard all day long, Carlos Mortensen, Patrik Antonius, Amnon Filippi and Amir Vahedi also maintained impressive chip stacks for the majority of the day.

With tournament officials announcing only eight more hands would be played Phil Ivey, David “The Dragon” Pham and Alan Goehring all took big risks and busted out during this time, with day 2 clearly in sight.

Other big names heading home early included Scott Fischman, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Toto Leonidas, Liz Lieu, Chip Reese and Daniel Negreanu.

The chip leaders at the end of the day are as follows:

1. Nenad Medic - $141,700

2. Loi Phan - $119,025

3. Amnon Filippi - $112,150

4. Josh Arieh - $100,225

5. Amir Vahedi - $93,575

Carlos Mortensen ($93,575), Tim Phan ($93,000), Hasan Habib ($92,675), Mike Gracz ($87,400), Gavin Smith ($84,400), Patrik Antonius ($83,650), David Oppenheim ($81,925), and Tuan Le ($78,300) round out the rest of the big names featured in the top fifteen.

Shane @ Poker.com