Online Poker

July 13, 2009

Only 3 more days to go until the players of the final table of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event will be decided.

After 4 tournament days, the field was reduced to just the players left in the money. On Day 5, for the first time, the remaining 407 players no longer had to concern themselves with simple hopes of making back the $10,000 buy-in. Now they had a real shot at taking the top prize, worth millions of dollars. Day 5 is now over, and the remaining players are all set to win big money prizes.

It was a long road to get to this point. Day 1 of the tournament was split into 4 separate days to accommodate up to 3,000 players each day. This then led to 2 tournament Day 2s. Play was then delayed for a day before the core challenge began with the start of tournament Day 3.

After the Day 1 and Day 2 tournament days cleared out a significant number of less serious players, Day 3 finished the clean-up with 789 players at day’s end. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier finished the day on top with 1,380,500 chips. Less fortunate pro poker players who busted out on Day 3 included Greg Raymer, Erik Seidel and Roland de Wolfe. Many celebrities from other walks of life had also made it to Day 3 but could go no further, including Shane Warne and Jason Alexander. These were all part of more than 1,000 eliminations on Day 3.

Day 4 was a test of patience for many, as this day had one particular question: who can last long enough to land in the money? The field was almost halved by the end of the day, with the first 150 or so eliminations particularly hard on the players, as they were so close to the money at that point. The end of Day 4 saw only 407 players remaining, with victims of the day’s play including Greg Mueller, Chris Ferguson and Phil Hellmuth. One of the players near the top was Ludovic Lacay, with players such as Bertrand Grospellier, Theo Tran, and Blair Hinkle also high in the chip counts. It was Matt Affleck, however, who led the chip counts at the end of Day 4, with 1,819,000 chips.

Day 5 was the first day to begin with all players in the money, a field of 407 contending for position leading up to the final table. With all the players now in the money, play often slows down, as the casual players have usually all been eliminated and all that remains are those dedicated players who have hundreds of thousands of hands experience in professional poker play. Early in the day, players such as Jeff Kimber, Thor Hansen and Sander Lylloff saw the end of their 2009 WSOP main event dreams. Ludovic Lacay was responsible for many early knockouts, taking out 3 players within less than 2 hours. The end of the day saw the field reduced to a mere 185 players, with Warren Zackey at the top of the pack at over 5 million chips. Professional poker players still well-placed in the tournament include Phil Ivey, Bertrand Grospellier, Tom Schneider, James Akenhead and Joe Hachem.

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