Day 1 B was a much quieter affair with only 873 players sitting down. This was possibly because it was 4th of July and a big holiday weekend here in the US. PartyPoker had 23 players starting their journey towards WSOP fame and fortune. For some it was the first time they have played in a big live tournament. One guy has made his way to Las Vegas for a cost of only $8 and won his way through to one of our weekly satellites where he won his $12,000 package.
The suite was busy again today as players enjoyed the great food and took the opportunity to relax during the breaks. Every now and again, we would see a famous face walk by and a ripple of excitement would run through the room as people rushed to take a look. As promised yesterday I managed to take a couple of photos of Scotty Nguyen and Antonio Esfandiari which we will attach to this post soon.
The main tournament room was still very busy despite the lower number of players playing today. Moving around the room in the early part of the afternoon I could see that most of our players were doing fine. The way the room is set up, I have to stay behind the rail and cannot walk around freely like I have done in previous smaller tournaments.
This makes it impossible to cover a lot of the play in any real detail because I am so far away from most of the players. I get to hear about the major hands that players were involved in when they come back to the suite during the breaks and start swapping stories about the big pots they were involved in and the bad beats they have witnessed.
We have players here from all over the world and although many players naturally talk to guys from their own country, there is also a great deal of team spirit among the group. The players and their guests have developed a real sense of camaraderie which we always see with PartyPoker players. That’s why they are the best group of players in poker.
When it came to bag up the chips I was surprised that we had lost so many of our players. Ten players managed to survive to see day 2.
Here are the chip counts for our PartyPoker players.
Jannick Wrang 82350
Katja Svendsen 64750
Ettore Di Leva 52750
Alexander Luber 51125
Charles Wale 46775
Ashley Cheung 44725
Ales Kalan 44350
Martin Raus 44250
Marcus Balmert 38650
Tom Ahlberg 5200
Erik Backlund out
Manuel Barbero Ballesteros out
Peter Andreas Bondeson out
Marco Cafolla out
Donne Rontin out
Jiri Hlavaty out
Vincent Konkuyt out
Felix Lambertz out
Dennis Nikitorut out
Patrick Smith out
Danilo Souza out
Jon Cudney out
Michael Zauner out
