After a day spent taking in the sights or just taking it easy, the players all converged on the tournament room on the second floor at the Commerce Casino for the WPT Celebrity Invitational. This event is a $200,000 freeroll which attracts many top name poker players as well as a good number of TV and movie stars. This was the reason the players had flown all the way to Los Angeles.
Getting interviewed on the red carpet
Inside the tournament room play was now underway. Although it is a freeroll, The WPT Celebrity Invitational is a charity event and players can re-buy for $200 which all goes to help many local worthy causes. I busied myself taking snaps of all of the players. Here is a little photo gallery of some the PartyPoker players and famous faces.
Kartik
- Terri Hatcher
Yael
Oliver
Johan
Tobias
Scott
- Naveen
Aravinda looking to make a move
Aravinda from India was playing live poker for the first time and got a few helpful tips from WSOP final tablist Chino Rheem who was sat to her right. Unfortunately Aravinda tried bluffing once too often and won the prize for first Party player to exit the tournament. Our very own Mike O’Malley was next when his nut flush was beaten by a rivered straight flush. The noise from the table when Mike’s opponent hit a 1 outer could have been heard all over America.
Play continued throughout the night and at first the Party players were doing very well but in the last couple of hours before the end of the night we lost a lot of players to an extraordinary series of bad beats. Worst of all happened to Mark from Bristol who had pocket aces in early position and found his raise called by a guy in the cut-off. A flop of 69K prompted a good bet from Mark followed by his opponent coming over the top with an all in raise. Mark was convinced his opponent had AK and snap called. Mark was understandably shocked when his opponent turned over 96 for flopped two pair which held up.
One little side bit of fun revolved around our Brazilian Team Party player Felipe ‘Mojave’ Ramos and his girlfriend Marienela. Between us we set up a last longest prop bet. If Marienela lasted longest, Felipe would have to wash the dishes everyday for a month. If Felipe lasted longest, Marienela would have to give Felipe a 30 minute back massage every day for a month.
I spent an hour going backwards and forwards between their two tables giving each of them updates on the chip situation. Marienela won by about two hands and Felipe will have to put on an apron every day much to everyone’s amusement. We want pictures of that Felipe.
Marienela the winner
Felipe
By the play finished after 2.30am, 6 partypoker players were remaining in the total of 161 players who would be back at 1pm on Sunday.
