The End of the Beginning
Monday, June 29, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Even for the Rio during the World Series this stands out as a busy night. Out in the halls there’s a line a hundred yards long to register for tomorrow’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold-Em event (the last of that sort this year) and up in the Rio casino proper there’s a line five times longer for a poolside concert held by the Mexican band Bronco. The $50K H.O.R.S.E. event is down to 31 players (16 cash), the Limit Shootout final table is playing out, and the $3,000 Triple Chance NLHE tournament and the $1,500 Stud/8 event are well into their opening days. Oh, almost forgot, there’s another $1,500 No-Limit event playing down to the final table tonight.
So that’s five tournaments in progress, another filling up as fast as players can fork over their buy-ins, and a standing-room-only concert that’ll no doubt clog the casino the rest of the night. Throw in the usual weekend crowds, the non-stop cash game action, and the spectators jamming the rail by the H.O.R.S.E. tables and it makes for a busy (if still sane) evening.
You might think that this is about as busy a night as we’re likely to see, but chances are this will be the status quo for the next few days. Tomorrow’s $1,500 NLHE event will bring another 2,800 players to the Rio at high noon, and then the $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw event starts at 5pm. The H.O.R.S.E. event will see some of the best poker players in the world playing down to the final table, no doubt in front of scores of spectators. The Triple Chance and Stud/8 tournaments will also be playing down to their final tables as well. Five tournaments at once, it’s enough to make your head spin.
But in one way tomorrow will act as the high-water mark of the 2009 World Series of Poker. After the Deuce-to-Seven event starts tomorrow evening there will be just one bracelet event left–the $5,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold-Em–before the Main Event. There will be fewer tournaments in play day-by-day, not more. We’ll start counting down the last few bracelet ceremonies, the last few national anthems that’ll resound through the Amazon Room.
But it’s not like the World Series is ready to strike the tents–far from it. On Thursday the Ante Up for Africa tournament will be held, with a galaxy of sports, entertainment and poker superstars playing in Annie Duke and Don Cheadle’s annual charity tournament for Darfur. And then, the very next day, the Main Event begins. Seems hard to believe that the Main Event starts in less than a week, but if you don’t believe me just check the calendar. Heck, I checked the calendar, no longer trusting my own sense of judgment. Five weeks at the WSOP will do that to you.
If you’d like to see some of what’s gone on those last five weeks, you can check out our WSOP Photo Gallery, which features a lot of the pictures I’ve taken so far (many of which never made it into the blog). And over the next 17 days I think I’ll be adding many, many, many more pictures to the collection.
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Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 world series of poker photos, 2009 world series photos, 2009 wsop, 2009 wsop photos, world series of poker, world series of poker photos, WSOP, wsop photos
