Obst, Bonomo, Bicknell, and Kaverman All Survive Day 1 of Event #36: $3,000 NLHE Shootout
The first round of Event #36: $3,000 No-Limit Hold��Em Shootout is over after twelve levels of 40 minutes saw 40 players progress to the next day of action. There were 313 players who bought in at the start of the day, spread out over 40 different tables, and each table winner would make it through to the second round and be in the money for at least $6,099. The winner at the end of the three rounds will walk away with $207,193 out of the $845,100 total prize pool.
Claiming the chip lead (even though most stacks are pretty even due to the shootout format) is Pavel Plesuv with 159,000 in chips. As expected, some of the most well-known players in the poker world flocked to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino today for one of their favorite formats during the 50th Annual World Series of Poker. Previous bracelet winners Byron Kaverman, Taylor Paur, Alexandru Papazian, Justin Bonomo, Andrew Lichtenberger, Kristen Bicknell, James Obst, Eric Froehlich, and Jeremy Wien all made it through.
Another previous bracelet winner can be found in Ryan Leng who was the first player of the day to make it through by defeating the poker legend that is Phil Ivey heads-up. Leng rivered a straight against Ivey��s flopped top pair when Leng put Ivey all-in on the river after he had check-called on the flop and turn. Ivey called again and quickly left when he saw he wasn��t going through to the second round. Leng being drawn on the same four-handed table as all-time money list leader Justing Bonomo on Day 2 is just one of several intriguing match-ups.
Elsewhere, Ludovic Riehl��s table was the first to go heads-up yet one of the last to finish.Dario Sammartino hit quads on the river when the chips all went in preflop against Tomas Jozonis. Harry Lodge held with pocket nines against the ace-jack of his opponent to win the table. Jesse Sylvia beat James Romero heads-up with ace-deuce while Romero held king-nine. Romero flopped kings but Sylvia rivered a pair of aces to make it through. Johan Guilbert��s ace-king found a full house on the flop and there were many more success stories throughout the day.
Not everyone was lucky enough to survive Day 1, however, with players like John Monnette, Tom Cannuli, Georgios Sotiropoulos, Erik Seidel, Brian Yoon, Daniel Negreanu, Phill Hellmuth, Preston Lee, John Racener, Paul Volpe, Ben Heath, Anthony Zinno, Ankush Mandavia, and a bunch of other bracelet winners all failing to overcome their table draw.
The 40 remaining players will return at 2 p.m. local time to the Miranda Room and are spread out over ten different tables with four players each. They will all compete to make it through to the final table of ten players on Monday, June 17. When they return, they will start with the first level of the second round which features a small blind of 1,000, big blind of 2,000, and a big blind ante of 2,000. The levels will last 40 minutes again with a 15-minute break after every three levels. Play will continue until each table has a winner and the PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the Shootout again so make sure to return.