Just when you thought the internet was full of some pretty ridiculous stuff, Phil Hellmuth and UltimateBet have banded together in Vegas at the World Series of Poker to send shockwaves through the tubes of the worldwide superfantastic highway of infotainment.
It seems like you can’t read the news, browse YouTube or peruse a random poker blog without reading, hearing or seeing Phil Hellmuth dressed as an emperor, surrounded by ridiculously hot chicks wearing nothing but body paint, as he makes his way to the Rio for the Main Event of the WSOP 2009.
As outrageous as all of this sounds, we’re not making any of this World Series of Poker madness up. The proof is in your browser.
So many news outlets have reported on Phil Hellmuth’s grand entrance, it’s kinda difficult to know where to start.
Right here on the Ultimate Bet Blog, our chief blogger Gene Bromberg was the first to report on Phil’s now legendary WSOP entrance. In the usual Bromberg fashion, this post is complete with many exclusive photos of Phil’s eye-opening arrival. In fact, Gene’s photos of this spectacle are the best you can find online. Check out Gene’s post here.
And it’s not just poker pubs and sports sites that are still talking about the greatest WSOP spectacle in the history of land-based or online poker. USA Today did a piece on Hellmuth’s World Series of Poker entrance the other day as well.
While a quick Google search will turn up all kinds of photos and videos, we’ve assembled a few YouTube clips taken by all kinds of international pubs and peeps.
Here’s one by PokerListings.com
one by AssPoker.tv
One by the Latin American arm of Bluff
One by PokerPT.com
And one by some random dude with a super-shaky camera
We’ve reached the first break here on Day 2A of the Main Event, those in the field today will labor for five levels after playing four levels on their Day Ones. A grand total of 1,476 players took to the felt today…which is less than half of the 3,008 players who will return for Day 2B tomorrow. It’s crazy today–tomorrow the Rio will be like an asylum.
A day like this makes you appreciate how extraordinary the Main Event is. The chaos is mild today but there are still over a thousand players spread among the Amazon and Brasilia rooms, with a half-dozen video crews and dozens of photographers and reporters wandering around the aisles. And then of course you have the hundreds of spectators lining the rails around the playing area. Every so often you’ll hear a crazed cheer from some corner of the room where a player has sucked out and the film crews will scurry over.
And this isn’t one of the BAD days, at least not yet. But you have to survive days like these, and then survive Day 3 on Thursday…and after all that, you still might not be in the money. It’s a marathon and a fight rolled up into one. It’s the Main Event.
What with all the furor today over who didn’t get to play, let’s pause a moment to talk about those who ARE playing today. Including one Team UB member who is making his 2009 World Series of Poker debut, Scott Ian. Scott has been touring in Europe in support of Anthrax’s new album, Worship Music, and just made it into Vegas yesterday. And already he’s won a big pot with pocket Aces to boost his stack to over 40,000.
Two other players looking to make a big, final splash at the Main Event are Adam “Roothlus” Levy and Michael Binger, who are among the 2,809 players who are shoehorned into every nook and cranny of the Rio for play today.
One player who exited the tournament much too early was Matt “Wiscomurray” Murray, who was eliminated just before the dinner break. I saw him in the Phil Hellmuth lounge during the break and when he told me he’d been eliminated I said, “Oh, I’m sorry…I did get a pic of you, though.” Then I thought about what I said and added, “I’m sure that’s a great comfort right now”. Sometimes I can be a freakin’ idiot.
One player I didn’t get a picture of today was Matt Graham, who was eliminated from the Main Event while I was attending Jeffrey Pollack’s meeting earlier today. But I did get quite a few shots of Matt earlier in the Series, like when he won his second WSOP bracelet in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event:
World Series of Poker Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and other Harrah’s executives just concluded a meeting with around 150 players who hoped to play in the Main Event today but were turned away because the field was capped. The players were told that because of operational issues no additional players would be admitted to the Main Event.
“We are sorry, and I am sorry,” Pollack said in his opening statement. “The last thing that we ever want to do is deny people entry into our event.” But, he went on to say, “as was the case with ten other events at this year’s WSOP, we simply reached capacity today.”
As you might expect the players weren’t satisfied with Pollack’s statement and peppered him with questions. The biggest points of contention were why Harrah’s website says their Main Event capacity is 3,000 when they capped the field at around 2,700, and what specific “operational issues” prevented Harrah’s from putting more players in the field. Pollack said introducing alternates into play today wouldn’t be fair to those players, and that playing ten-handed today wouldn’t be fair after the first three days were played nine-handed. He also said that if they re-opened registration for a “Day 1E” then perhaps a thousand people might show up to play, which could have repercussions as the Main Event plays down from there.
“You have my word and my promise that this is going to be topic one as we plan for 2010. I have pledged every year that we will do better than the year before, and I think we’ve lived up to that promise,” Pollack said. “This is probably the single biggest challenge that we have faced in the past four years, and I promise that we will look at this and find the solution so this isn’t repeated next year.”
But the players weren’t especially interested in plans for next year–some of them have traveled thousands of miles to play in the Main Event, one said that playing in this tournament was a life-long dream and now he was being turned away. Another player brought up the fact that in just about every other tournament late registration was allowed, “In all the other events that started at noon you could sign up at two o’clock, and then today at ten o’clock they were shutting people out?”
A number of people also asked Pollack about reports that a number of well-known players who tried to register after the field was capped got in anyway–Pollack said that so far as he knew every player in the field had registered on time and that a number of famous players (Ted Forrest, Minh Ly and Tom Franklin among them) were not able to get in the field.
Pollack conceded that this is the first time that players have been turned away from the Main Event under his watch (and perhaps the first time that’s happened in Main Event history). “Just to be clear, we are not doing this happily,” Pollack said. “We’re not in the business of turning people away.” To which one player replied, “What part of $3 million don’t you like, bro?”
It was an unhappy outcome for all concerned. This is one of those situations where everyone had good intentions and everyone got screwed. It’s one thing to say that the players should’ve registered early, that they should’ve played on one of the earlier days…but the fields were smaller than last year (when no players were turned away) and there was no notification on Harrah’s part (until last night) that Day 1D might sell out. And if you’re flying from New York, or Oslo, or Buenos Aires on Sunday to play on Monday it’s impossible to change your plans at the last second. For many of the players in the room, this was their first time to the World Series and they might not have had an idea of the sheer size and scope of the event. They thought (quite reasonably) that they could show up at noon, plunk down $10,000, and take a seat. Because that’s they way it’s always been.
But today, the World Series of Poker was a victim of it’s own success. There were 150 people in that room desperate to give Harrah’s $10,000…and Harrah’s had to say, “I’m sorry, we can’t take it”. The WSOP is so popular that today the players strained it beyond it’s ability to cope. There are only so many tables, so many dealers, so many floorpersons available to work the tournament. If another 500 players sat down at 5pm to play in a makeshift Day 1E it might’ve caused gridlock as the Main Event tried to get through the Day 2s and Day 3 and into the money.
After the meeting was over a number of disgruntled players crowded around Tom Franklin, who acted as a spokesperson for the players. He told them to calm down, that the decision was made and it was final. One player said he couldn’t believe he was going to miss the Main Event and Franklin said, “I’ve played 30 in a row and I can’t believe I’m going to miss this one.”
About an hour after the meeting Jeffrey Pollack came up to Media Row to say that he’d be willing to discuss what happened today further during the press conference that’s scheduled for Thursday. And while he was here he said, again, “We’re going to fix this, THAT I know”. It’s unfortunate that no one, not the players nor Harrah’s, saw soon enough that something was going to break today.
The big story today isn’t that there are over 2,700 people playing in the Main Event–it’s the 500 (or more) who WANTED to play in the Main Event today and weren’t able to because Day 1D sold out. There were rumblings last night that the tournament would fill up but it seems like no one anticipated that there would be such an influx of entrants at the last second. And those who aren’t able to play (and in many cases traveled a long way to Vegas) were not happy about it. An hour after play began there were still hundreds of angry people in the hallways, many of whom were talking to Mike Sexton. According to a report by Bluff Magazine Sexton acted as a spokesperson for the shut-out players and was talking to tournament director Jack Effel about their grievances.
I talked to a couple of players in the hall who were livid about not getting to play. One who flew in from New York last night said, “They advertise 3,000 seats per day on their website, and they you get here and they cap it at 2,700.” Although there was talk here last night that Day 1D sold out, the shut-out players didn’t know that was a possibility. “They need to have on the website in big blinking lights ‘YOU MAY GET LOCKED OUT’,” the New Yorker said.
There are rumors, and at the moment that’s all they are, that Harrah’s is trying to find a way to accommodate these players. There’s talk of starting a “Day 1E” tonight at 5pm using tables that free up during play today and then having those players play four levels They would then play tomorrow on Day 2A with the much-smaller fields that played the first two days of the Main Event. Like I said, these are just things we’re hearing second-hand from usually-reputable sources, but nothing’s written in stone. (I’m also hearing now they may start a Day 1E to run concurrently with Day 2A tomorrow).
It’s a condundrum for Harrah’s, which makes FOUR days available for players to start their Main Event and then is faced with a mob crashing the gates on one specific day. There’s only so much physical space and dealers and staff available at a single point in time. But if 500 players come away from the Rio with $10,000 in their pockets and a bad-beat story it’s going to be a major black eye for Harrah’s. The WSOP staff has run things extremely well the past two years–this is perhaps the biggest on-the-fly challenge they’ve faced. It should be an interesting afternoon.
It’s Day 1D of the World Series of Poker Main Event and to be honest it’s already been nuts. The seats for today’s flight are sold out–if you haven’t already bought into the Main Event, you ain’t playing in it this year. There was a mini-riot by the registration room as players prepared to pony up ten grand were told their money wasn’t good. And they weren’t too happy about it. So there are scores of unhappy poker players out in the hall mingling with about 2,800 anxious poker players who are about to file into the Amazon, Brasilia and Miranda rooms (they’ll be using Miranda today for sure). Add the fact that a sewer line or something backed up and it stinks in here, I mean it STINKS, and that just about everyone on Media Row is coughing and sneezing (the cold that flattened Annie Duke yesterday is a Rio-wide pandemic)…like I said, today is gonna be nuts.
And now the post I hoped I’d never have to write–Liv Boeree has been eliminated from the Main Event. She lost a big chunk of her stack earlier in the day when an opponent turned a wheel against her, and she was eliminated when she got all her money in with pocket Aces against a player who flopped an open-ended straight draw on the J-10-10 board. Her opponent made his straight on the turn and left Liv needing an Ace or a ten to stay alive. But the river was the 7c and that meant Liv’s Main Event was over much, much too soon. It’s probably best I didn’t take a picture of the…”person” who knocked her out, as there’s a good chance he would’ve been torn to shreds by the mob that would tracked him down like a dog. And that would be a bad thing. I think.
Liv cashed twice during the 2009 World Series and improved her amateur boxing record to 1-0 when she defeated PokerNews’ Melissa Castello in the “Rumble Nowhere Near the Rio”. Brains and brawn, Liv proved during the Series that she has them both.
You’ve probably heard someone say something like this–”Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded”. It’s much the same with finding good spots to watch the feature tables here in the Amazon Room–I was walking around and passed two gentlemen fighting their way through the crowd. “Where are we going?” the one asked.
“Phil Hellmuth is playing over there,” the other asked, gesturing to the jam-packed rail along the secondary feature table. The two wandering down the rail, looking in vain for an open spot, and finding none the first guy said, “Ahh, forget it. Who wants to stand here and see nothin’?”
Well, turns out quite a few people are quite willing to stand there and see nothin’…or at least stand there and wedge their way to the front to get a good look at the bright lights and cameras. I had to contort myself under the ropes and risk violent ejection by an ESPN producer (OK, she saw my media badge and gave a quick nod of benediction) to get this shot:
After I squirmed my way back to the floor I tried to get close for a shot of Phil. Tried, and failed. The folks watching the action had calcified into an impenatrable structure not unlike coral–every time I tried to wiggle through I got nowhere fast and came away with cuts and scrapes on my exposed surfaces. I backed off and took a shot of the folks watch Phil from above and below.
Chip counts are hard to come by on that table–Phil was up to 40K at one point, tweeted that he’d won a couple of nice pots, then somehow managed to avoid disaster when he flopped trips and his opponent flopped a full house. But with an hour to go before we stop play for the night he’s still in the Main Event, still in his seat, still dodging bullets.
The end of the World Series came early for Brandon Cantu as well, as he was eliminated just before the last break of the evening. Cantu made a move against a player who’d flopped a set of Jacks on an A-J-6, and after the call Brandon was drawing at a mircle with Ks-8s. A Queen fell on the turn, giving Brandon a gutshot draw, and as he screamed “Ten! Ten!!” the dealer placed an Ace on the river that gave the 50,000-chip pot to his opponent. And not long after the period was placed at the end of Cantu’s World Series when he was all in on the flop against a player who turned the nut flush.
But his disappointment at being eliminated today should be tempered by the fact that he had a fantastic Series. He finished second in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold-Em event, losing out on his second bracelet in cruel fashion when he was heads-up with Ray Foley. But he rebounded from that bitter defeat a few days later by racing out to a huge chip lead in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/8 tournament and then coming from behind to defeat Lee Watkinson to finally capture his second bracelet. A shot of that earlier, happier time:
The World Series of Poker lasts nearly seven weeks, to the point where you think it’ll never end. But when the Main Event rolls around that means your Series can conclude with the cruel turn of a card. It sneaks up on you, the end can come so quickly that it takes some time to comprehend that it’s Over. There’s no new tournament tomorrow, no more opportunities to win a bracelet. Your World Series is done.
That’s the fate that befell Annie Duke, who was eliminated before the dinner break on Day 1C. Annie twittered that she’d woken up with a cold and a sore throat and hoped to gut it out today so she’d have two days to recover before her Day 2. But it wasn’t meant to be. She lost two big hands early on (both to players who held K-6 against her) and then lost the last of her chips when her Ace-King lost a race to pocket nines. And that was that, Annie’s Main Event and Series came to an end.
Annie cashed twice at this year’s World Series (she’s now cashed in 35 WSOP events, which is the same number as Phil Ivey and one more than Doyle Brunson) and made the final table at the $10,000 Omaha/8 World Championship. And she also helmed yet another massive Ante Up for Africa charity tournament. So there’s a lot of success to point to…though that probably comes as small consolation the night you’re eliminated from the Main Event.
