26 September 2010
Ivey Ivey Ivey! Just seven hands in, Ivey re-takes the chip lead.
We told you the action was hotting up! Viktor “Isildur1” Blom no longer holds the WSOPE chip lead but don’t worry, he hasn’t bluffed it off – it’s just Ivey being Ivey. Nick Schulman must be glad to leave, though – he had the most awful spot in the tournament directly to Phil Ivey’s right.
And they're off! WSOPE Day 3 is underway.
We began with 346 players stumping up £10,000 and now we are down to less than a fifth of that field; 66 players are returning today to – they hope – make the money and the last three tables. We’re scheduled for six levels of play but the magic number is 27 remaining players which, judging from yesterday’s 129 casualties, may not take too long.
Viktor "Isildur1" Blom leads into Day 3 of WSOPE Main Event
Well, that was a bloody good day. We began with one of the toughest fields that tournament poker has ever seen. I'd take the over on 100 WSOP bracelets in the room when 195 players began the day.
25 September 2010
Just 38 minutes left in WSOPE Day 2
British hopes for a WSOPE win are thinning. Praz Bansi, hoping for his second WSOP bracelet of the year, will have to wait until 2011 because he has left The Empire and his chips are now in Remy Biechel’s stack. Bansi lost a coinflip with 9-9 versus A-Q; a Q in the door and that’s all she wrote for the young Brit who joins Chris Moorman on the rail.
Matusow bust, 77 remain, Huck Seed isn't RaiseOnce
The final break is over; the final level begins. Viktor Blom is still leading the field over Darren Woods, Nick Schulman and Dan Shak while Phil Ivey slips outside the top five. Mike Matusow has become the latest player to hit the rail along with fellow Full Tilt Pro Allen Cunningham. There are 87 players left with blinds at 1,000/2,000/300.
Jennifer Tilly eliminated in an otherwise slow level; 82 remain
A combination of tiredness, the day drawing on and the post-dinner slump means that action has been muted with only nine eliminations this level. One every ten minutes may sound a lot but we had almost fifty in the first level and 31 last level.
No more Mr Nice Guy for Negreanu as he builds a stack
When we left for the dinner break, Daniel Negreanu was looking... well, pretty grouchy with barely a few hundred above his 30,000 starting stack in front of him. Now he has about 130,000 – above average by fifteen big blinds – and will be hoping to better his runner-up finish last year.
Penultimate level of Day 2, Blom still leads and Shulman leaves
We walk into the main floor at The Empire and, surprise surprise, Viktor Blom is involved in a hand. He mused upon whether to call Yevgeniy Timoshenko’s 21,000 shove over his raise and eventually threw in the chips. “Small pair?” he asked, and smiled: “I’m live” when Timoshenko turned over A-K.
We are fed, watered and back for Day 2
Well, Day 2 has certainly been a lot more exciting than either of the opening flights as two of the most talked-about poker players in the world built huge stacks – Phil Ivey held the chip lead for a while until Viktor “Isildur1” Blom seemed to go a bit mental and got up to more than 450,000.
Dinnertime! Viktor Blom leads at the end of level ten.
Well, we did it. We spoke to Viktor “Isildur1” Blom – and he spoke back! Yup, hundreds of online poker fanboys are crapping their pants with jealously now that Matt Perry’s ears have been graced with the quiet Swedish tones of Blom: