WSOP Main Event Day 1B kicked off on Sunday and gathered a field of 2,144 players. Once concluded, some 1,300 players are set to go on to Day 2B. The chip leader is a pretty unknown player called Trey Luxemburger who managed to finish the day with 193,450 chips, closely follwed by Sarkis Hakobian on 190,125 and Ryan Buckholtz on 189,000.
Day 1B saw some familiar faces that managed to survive to Day 2B. Among these are Martin Staszko, Antoine Saout, Kevin Schaffel and Dennis Phillips. Some of the unfortunate poker profiles that were busted out on Day 1 were Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier,Paul Volpe, Chris Moorman, and “Doc” Sands.
Main Event Day 1C is expected to be have the highest number of participants of all Day 1's. In order to beat last years number of players, another 3,438 participants need to enroll.
James Akenhead, from England, is a 26 years old Full Tilt PRO who will start the final table tomorrow with the least chips of the 9 remaining players. James hasn't been playing poker for a very long, but he has still been very successful and won over $800,000 online and live so far. At the 2008 World Series of Poker, he finished second in event #2 ($1,500 NL Texas Hold'em). With other words, he's not a newbie when it comes to playing in the World Series.
James will only bring 6,800,000 chips with him to the final table on Saturday, and he will need to double up at least 2 times quite fast in order to have some kind of chance of becoming the World Champion.
The 2009 WSOP final table is only 1 day away folks! Don't forget to vote for your favorite to win in our "Who will become the World Champion"-poll. For those of you who want to bet some money on the November 9 finalists, we can recommend KickOffPoker who also offers a €5000 deposit bonus & 45% cashback.
Antoine Saout, 25, is from Saint Martin des Champs, France and he's one of the 2 finalists that aren't born in USA. Antoine mostly plays poker online and there he has won about $200,000. Although he has been quite successful online, he has no records of any live tournament winnings, until now. This is Antoine's first ever WSOP and he won his entry to the Main Event through a $50 satellite online.
Antoine Saout had a really tough struggle to make it this far in the tournament. No one else than the other November 9 finalist Phil Ivey was seated on his left at the poker table for the 3 last days of the tournament. Now, however, both he and Phil Ivey are going to play for some serious cash on Saturday when the final table kicks off.
Antoine brings 9,500,000 with him to the final table on Saturday. He's quite short stacked with other words. But Antoine might have some kind of advantage because of the tough fight he had the 3 last days of the tournament. And who knows? Maybe he will be really dangerous if he mange to double up at the early stages of the final table.
Phillip "Phil" Ivey was born in Riverside, California February 1, 1976. When he was only 3 months old he and his family moved across the country to Roselle, New Jersey. Phil's grandpa taught him to play poker when he was just a kid, Phil then crafted his game playing skills amongst his co-workers at a New Brunswick, New Jersey telemarketing firm in the late 90's.
Used a fake ID When Phil was around 17 years old, he started going to Atlantic City to play poker for money. Of course he was too young to enter any of the casinos, but thanks to a fake ID card with the name "Jerome" on it he managed to get in. Phil used to play for 16-17 hours straight at the casino and sometimes he missed the last bus home so that he had to sleep on a bench near the casino. The casino staff used to call him "No home Jerome" because of that.
Kevin Schaffel, 52, a father of 2, was born and raised in Miami and is these days living Florida, USA. Kevin started playing poker at home with his family when he was just 11 years old. Many years later, he understood that he had some sort of talent for tournament poker and that he actually could make some money out of it. And so he did. Kevin has cashed in 7 bigger tournaments and won over $600,000 during his poker career. Even though he has been so successful and made so much money, he still wants more...
Aiming high Kevin's ambitions with poker part from making money, has always been to win either a WSOP Main Event, or a WPT title. If he wins the Main Event, which is the biggest dream for him, he will retire straight away and play poker and golf full-time.
Final table Kevin Schaffel brings 12,390,000 chips with him to the final table and is with that on 6th place. He doesn't see a quite short stacked Phil Ivey as a really big threat (like many of the other November 9 players) and he thinks that he has a decent chance of taking home the tournament even though he's far behind some of the players in chips.
The American, Aaron Gustavson, won his seat to EPT London through an online satellite at PokerStars. But well in the Main Event he showed that he's not only a great online poker player, but also great at playing poker live. He had twice as much chips as Peter Eastgate (2nd place) and Martin Gudvangen (3rd place) as the Main Event Final Table of EPT London started, and this big lead he had no plans to let go off.
It came to be Aaron Gustavson and Peter Eastgate who stayed in the lead all the way to heads-up. At this moment, Aaron, had twice as much chips as Eastgate. But as we all know, Peter Eastgate, has a lot of experience when it comes to televised final tables when the pressure is on top. However, Aaron, managed to remain calm, and it took him no time to knock out his final opponent (Peter Eastgate).
111 players made it to Day 3 in the Main Event of EPT London. Among them were some of the hottest names in poker at the moment. For example: Annette Obrestad, Peter Eastgate, Kevin Schaffel, and many more.
The tournament organizers had planned to play down to 24 players in Day 3 of the tournament, but for a long time it seemed like it wouldn't be that way. It was just thanks to some very late eliminations that everything went as planned. Among the 24 survivors we find some of the youngest and most successful players there are at the moment.
The main event of EPT London attracted a huge starting field this time. Not less than 730 players took part this year (about 100 more than last year). Of the 730 players who signed up for the main event - 111 of them will play Day 3 of the tournament. Among these 111 players we find some really hot names at the moment in the world of poker. However, the 2 most interesting players to follow in Day 3 have to be these 2.....
WSOP Main Event Day 1B kicked off on Sunday and gathered a field of 2,144 players. Once concluded, some 1,300 players are set to go on to Day 2B. The chip leader is a pretty unknown player called Trey Luxemburger who managed to finish the day with 193,450 chips, closely follwed by Sarkis Hakobian on 190,125 and Ryan Buckholtz on 189,000.
