Verenko Leads Day 1 of Event 58; Bronshtein Close Behind
Another night of poker action has come to a close here at the 2012 World Series of Poker. This time it was Day 1 of Event 58: $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better that has entered the history books. At the end of night, it was Roman Verenko who held the most chips as he will start tomorrow��s Day 2 with a large 83,100-chip stack. Not far behind Verenko was Yuval Bronshtein with 71,400 in chips.
With a reduced buy-in, it was always very likely that this event would see more entrants than last year when Nick Binger defeated a field of 352 players and that��s exactly what happened. A total of 526 players created a very handsome prize pool of $1,435,980 and it is $330,277 that will go the eventual champion.
Some of those who won��t be getting their hands on any of the above prizes are Daniel Negreanu, David Williams and Viktor Blom, all of whom busted very early in the night. Phil Hellmuth was a late addition to the tables, but ended up being eliminated during the final level of the night.
John Racener, Bill Chen and Phil Ivey also couldn��t survive through to Day 2. We arrived at the table during Ivey's last hand with a flop already out on the felt, with Ivey up against one opponent. Ivey led for 700 on the flop and his opponent raised the pot. Ivey then called all in for 3,300 and the two players turned their hands over. Ivey held and was up against his opponent's . The turn and the river were of no help to Ivey as he was sent packing.
Managing to do much better than those players were Amnon Filippi, Erick Lindgren, Scotty Nguyen and Jennifer Tilly as each of these players will be returning to the tables tomorrow with plenty of chips. Also still in contention are the likes of David "ODB" Baker, Mike Matusow and Humberto Brenes. Another player who will be at the felt tomorrow is last year's Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better champion, Nick Binger.
Be sure to return tomorrow from 2:00 PM as approximately 173 players return for Day 2 of Event 58. We will be trying to get as close to a final table as possible tomorrow, so don��t miss it!