Day 1B of the 2008 WSOP Main event is over and although this is arguably the most prestigious poker tournament in the world, the mood in the Amazon room seemed almost subdued today. The usual excitement in the air was much less noticeable, presumably because all the players were focused on playing a serious game that would keep them in long enough to get to day two. Playing for UltimateBet and the UB ARMY today were Scott “breakinbacks” Warren, Robert “ZMan” Zarzycki, Justin “J__Dubs” Wallace, Jeremy “symi” Symington, Rick “rplrpl” Lowe, Antonis “ENIGMA4U4ME” Poulengris, and Jason “jaspuduf” Lee. It seemed that Poulengris and Lee were both eliminated early today although we were unable to catch their specific bust-out hands.
Wallace was spotted nursing a short stack for a good portion of the day hovering around the 15k mark for awhile but ending the day with a little over 11k. Warren sat on a short stack as well and ended the day with around 13k in chips.
Another player who was having trouble getting his chip stack moving in the right direction was Zarzycki who told a reporter that he had spent most of the day with a stack around 20k, the stack he started with. He said that he had gotten up to 27k at one point but then in one hand with the blinds at 200/400 the player in the cutoff raised to 1.1k and Zarzycki called from the small blind with pocket nines. Stu “The Donator” Paterson then pushed all-in for around 10k from the big blind and the cutoff folded. Zarzycki made the call and was ahead of Paterson’s AQ but an ace on the flop put Paterson’s hand in front and Zarzycki was unable to hit another nine to retake the lead and his stack dropped back to around 17k.
Having a little more success in day 1B was Symington who ended the day with over 60k in chips. He said that he felt he played well and wasn’t involved in too many big pots. He said that his toughest decision of the day came when another player pushed all in on the turn of a hand where Symington held pocket kings and the board was showing all smaller cards, but Symington did decide to lay the hand down.
After the WSOP released the chip counts from day 1A, the list of survivors included Anthony “Italyn” Gagliardi 11,900, Brendan “moe86” Mahoney 34,725, Dixon “7tempeheat7” Ruecker 35,050, Ellen “ellen00001” Narkis 20,275, Jaime “its_a_sicknes” Avery 32,725, Jason “888-admit-it” Williams 22,025, Michael “DblpM0j” Johnson 114,000, Ryan “SgtJoeRoberts” Vanderhoof 24,050, Tom”vanijvodka” Pyl 65,275, and Tracy “Fatcats” Scala 38,500. These players will join the day 1B survivors in day 2A on July 8th.
