WSOP Day 32 recap: TOC structure change, Sung looks for 2nd WSOP win

It’s not uncommon for a tournament to throw event officials a minor curveball every now and then, but the pitch the Tournament of Champions delivered to WSOP officials was one of the nastiest 12-to-6 breaking balls of all-time! So, here is what went down:

Tournament of Champions

The plan from the start was for the 27 participants to play two 4-hour days and reconvene for the final table on July 4^th. Unfortunately, the deepstack format, and the quality and style of the players, made it so not 9, but 17 players were remaining after the two sessions!

Even more of a problem is the logistics of fitting in another day of play somewhere before the televised July 4^th final table. Almost the entire remaining field will be participating in the $25,000 6-Max event on the 3^rd, and Howard Lederer hosts an annual charity event on that day as well. The current plan -which could easily change-is to have the players come back on the 4^th of July at 10am (keep in mind that waking up at 10am for a pro poker player is like you or I waking up at 2:30am) and play out the remainder of the event.

So perhaps the 10 players who have been eliminated will count themselves lucky: Joining the five who departed on Day 1 –Sam Farha, Greg Raymer, John Juanda, Phil Ivey and Barry Shulman-were Doyle Brunson, Dan Harrington, Mike Sexton, Joe Cada and the Internet qualifier Andrew Barton.

I’m sure Mike Matusow, Huck Seed, Johnny Chan, Scotty Nguyen and Joe Hachem are the most pliable to any decisions made on when to continue play, since they are #1-5 in chips respectively!

Event #47: $1,000 No limit Holdem

33 players are coming back for Day 3 of the NLHE tournament, and amongst them is Scott Montgomery -who fits the 2010 WSOP success trend perfectly, not only because he’s Canadian, but he also has already won a bracelet in 2010.

Event #48: $2,500 8-Game Mix

Poker pro Steve Sung is seeking bracelet #2 -you may remember Sung won the first $1k NLHE tournament that took place last year, besting a 6,000 player field and winning $771k-and is locked in a heads-up battle with Norwegian Sigur Eskeland. The two players have been up and down and passing the chip-lead back-and-forth.

A slew of Poker Pros placed in the Top 10 in the tournament including Scott Seiver in 6^th place, Jared Jaffe in 7^th place, Matt Vengrin in 9^th place, and Todd Brunson in 10^th place.

Event #49: $1,500 No Limit Holdem

In a single day of play the starting field of 2,543 players was knocked down to just 315. Some of the big name players who got off to a strong start in the tournament include David “The Dragon” Pham who is currently in 11^th place, Roland DeWolfe currently in 20^th place, Matt Matros currently in 22^nd, Andy Bloch in 23^rd place, and Liv Boeree in 27^th place.

Event #49: $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha

A massive 460 players registered for the $5k PLO tournament, further proof how far the game has come in the poker world. By the end of Day 1 207 players were still in the hunt for the coveted WSOP bracelet along with the $500k+ in prize money.

As expected in large buy-in, non-Holdem, events the pros are out in force and are dominating the leader-board: Kevin Schaffel, Dan Shak, Scotty Nguyen, Annette Obrestad, Joshua Tieman, Men Nguyen, Ayaz Mahmood, Lee Watkinson, Phil Ivey, Nick Binger, Jesper Houggard, Greg Raymer, Jonathan Little, Lex Veldhuis, Jason Mercier, Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspiellier, Mike Matusow, Barney Boatman, and Phill Hellmuth are all in the top 31 chip-counts.

Results courtesy of WSOP.com