Viva Las Vegas - let's go. News, updates & goss about our qualifiers.

Sky_SamT

One to add to our Day 1B counts is Gerard Gardner who has 20k

Sky_SamT

The Day 1A qualifiers have 1 level left to negotiate and it appears that we still have 3 remaining.

Tim Rowland has built a nice stack and was last seen floating an ealry position raise on the flop and taking it away on the turn. He is up to about 60k with Dave Maudlin and Lee Rogers both around the 30k mark. Lee Rogers does not have an easy task with Alan Cunningham sat to his immediate right.

Day 1B qualifier Colin Muir also has it tough with Praz Bansi on the same table.

Tikay10

9.44pm - we might just have to disappear shortly, there is currently a Fire Alarm going off in The Rio.

Everyone is looking at each other, wondering if we have to evacuate.

There are some 4,000 chip stacks in play, so if an evacuation is necessary, those stacks will be unattended, & chaos will ensue.    

Tikay10

Pretty awkward day to follow our qualifiers today, with 30 odd players spread randomly across 3 different rooms. Most of them are not on their originally allocated seats or tables, either.

To complicate it further, Flights a & b are not physically separated. They are on different tables, of course, but they are all mixed up together, so some tables are from a, & some from b.
 
In addition, yesterday's $1,500 continues, as does the $25,000 PLO.
 
Tomorrow, fingers crossed, it will be a lot easier, & we'll be able to follow our qualifiers more easily.   

Tikay10

One thing that does help a bit is that almost all of our players are wearing a Sky Poker patch &/or hoodie.

And here's the thing. Most years, dozens of sites send players to the WSOP, but this year, there is a noticeable absence of qualifiers from various sites. I'd go so far as to say I doubt many, if any sites, have sent as many players as Sky Poker. There may be a few, but I doubt there are many. Who'd have thought?  

Sky_SamT

Paul Jackson continues to tick along nicely and has 27k. The Day 1B players of which there are still many left will play until 4am tonight (12pm UK time).

Day 2 begins tomorrow at 2pm (10pm UK time). We are approaching 4400 players but hard to gauge an average stack with 2 flights occuring at the same time.

Neil Channing set a target of 40,000 by the end of day one, a few of our players are fast approaching or in some cases exceeding that. Neil however will not be returning tomorrow for day 2.

Tikay10

I was just patrolling the tables, & inadvertently wandered into the area where yesterday's $1,500 is being played out, & just 80 odd of 2,500 remain. The different tournaments are not separated from each other, they just blend into each other, so it's hard to know at first glance who is playing what.

I spotted Tom Middleton, aka "Middy", & stopped to say hi, & wish him good luck. A glance at the size of the chip stacks soon told me that Middy was in yesterday's $1,500 NLH, & deep in the money already. He said "thanks, I'm hopeful of going very deep".
 
He was in the Small Blind, & once the cards were dealt, I stepped a pace away from the table, which is standard updater etiquette, you should never "hover" over players whilst they are in a hand.
 
Suddenly, with no action in front of him, the Button moved all-in for plenty, which seemed a rather odd play.

Middy, without a moments hesitation, moved all in too. Have I bought him some luck, I wondered?

And then the Big Blind, in a heartbeat, moved all in, too.

What?

The Button had Q-8. (?). 

Middy had J-J. 

Big Blind had the Aces.

Easy game, eh, when it plays out as simple as that.
 
And the flop killed all the excitement - A-6-7.
 
Middy looked at me, I looked at him. The tikay bok had worked again.        

Tikay10

Handsome Paul

I bumped into an old mate from Luton G, Paul Ephremsen, playing the Little One Drop.

Paul's name may be familiar to you - he finished 3rd in WSOP Event # 20 a fortnight ago, for $196,986, easily his biggest ever cash.
 
Then he flew home for Greyhound Derby Final night - Paul is involved in Greyhound TV, as well as owning several greyhounds. In fact he had a runner on Derby night in on of the support races, Ballymac Sinbad.
 
He then flew back to Vegas last weekend with his pal Mark Wallis, said to be the UK's leading trainer of greyhounds, who trained the winner of the Greyhound Derby twice in the last 6 years & both of them are playing the Little One Drop. 

What a life, eh?

Here's Mark Wallis......






...and here's Handsome Paul. And no, I've no idea how he got that nick. 




 
  

Tikay10

The Fire Alarm was a false alarm, & so the WSOP continues.
 
Not sure if you all know how fire alarms work, but one thing that happens is that all the doors to the various rooms - all rooms, be it cardrooms, hotel rooms or toilets - are held open by magnetic catches. As soon as the fire alarm activates, it breaks a circuit which releases all the magnetic catches, so all the doors instantly slam shut, & can only be opened from the inside. (So people can get OUT, but can't get IN).

So those who were wandering the corridor, or going from room to room, were all locked out.
 
As chance would have it, I was in the Media Centre at the time, but Dan & Sam were both on their way back to the Media Centre, from their usual 5 hour dinner break, & so were locked out.
 
I heard them knocking to get back in, so I decided to let them wait outside. That was an hour ago, & I'm still refusing to let them in, obv.    

Sky_SamT

The 5 hour break that Tikay refers to is the last 5 hours that I have spent patrolling the 3 rooms of the amazon looking for updates on our players.

26,000 steps and counting for the day. The walk to Starbucks is only 450 paces so Tikay is currently on 4500 steps.

FCHD

Day 1A is over, let's hope they put the chip counts up soon.

Day 1B is on "dinner break" at nearly 11:00pm at night! (That's got be worth an exclamation mark, Tikay?)

Tikay10

11pm in Vegas, & the corridor is suddenly heaving with players.

At almost the same moment.....

Flight A - which began at 10am - has finished for the day.

Flight B - which began at 4pm, is going on a 1 hour dinner break. (At 11pm of all times, which feels a little odd).

So it's hard to tell which players are which.
 
Paul Jackson  - he of the forgotten ID - just wandered in, he is in Flight B, & so is on dinner break. He has about 17,000, after losing a nasty coup on the last hand before the break with K-K on an A high flop. The flop may have saved him, as it looked like Matey Boy had the Aces. 

Anyway, Paul needed food, so I've just taken him to the rather odd location - on the roof, via two fire exits - of All American Dave, which is a sort of healthy burger bar (?), which all the kids think is the nuts. It's nothing of the sort, but they deliver food to players at the tables, & the delivery girls are scantily dressed nubile teenagers. On such thin whims are reputations built. The food is poo, but the waitresses are pretty. That's OK then.



   

Tikay10

In Response to Re: Viva Las Vegas - let's go. News, updates & goss about our qualifiers.:

Day 1A is over, let's hope they put the chip counts up soon. Day 1B is on "dinner break" at nearly 11:00pm at night! (That's got be worth an exclamation mark, Tikay?)
Posted by FCHD

It is certainly an odd time to break for dinner.

They will finish play at 4am, & those who survive will need to return at 2pm. With hindsight, it was certainly an advantage to play flight 1a.

Not sure whether chip counts for 1a will appear for a goodly while yet. That Fire Alarm earlier messed everyone up a treat, chaos reigned for a while, so reports are likely to be delayed.
 
It's been a real challenge today, to be honest, with both flights sort of mixed up in the same room, but tomorrow (today in the UK....) will be a lot easier.   

Tikay10

Meanwhile, Dan (Sky Poker TV) & Sam from Head Office have been well busy, Sam looks after the players both here & @ Palazzo, & Dan sorts out the You Tube Videos. 

Think we have recorded about 16 or 20 Videos so far, we are doing 5 or 6 every day.
 
Some are for instant release, others go "in the bank" for release later.

Tomorrow's (Wednesday) releases will include.....

Chris Moorman Interview

Simon Deadman Interview

Neil Channing's Daily Video diary

The Daily Moan

Today's interviews - not released yet - included Jake Cody & Steve Watts, as well as the daily stuff.

The Media Guidelines insist that we ONLY record stuff in the Official Interview Room. Now, that room is the darkest, dullest, drabbest, most boring room you ever saw. So Dan won't record in there, we have been recording all our stuff outside, in various locations. If we get caught, we'll get a good slap on the wrist, but it's worth the risk, & I think the videos, mostly recorded in bright sunlight, look better for it.    

Sky_SamT

Tim Rowland has bagged up 67k and will be back tomorrow along with (I think) David Maudlin and Lee Rogers. I was ushered out of the Brasilia room and unable to confirm whether both remain as I was soon consumed in the crush in the corridor.

Sky_SamT

More on the Day 1B qualifiers and a bit of a resurgence from some shorter stacks earlier in the day.

David Watkin, James Jeffery, Simon Cameron and Arpad Demeter are all hanging round having nursed a short stack for a lot of the day. 

I am afraid it is not such good news for David Roberts who has busted after running his 10 10 into AA.

Gerard Gardner and Alex Graham have both built a nice stack and sit above 20k although Alex would have had more if he hadn't ran JJ into AA on the last hand before dinner.

There are more Sky Poker players out there but I am afraid it is tough to find them all amongst the masses. 

Tikay10

Each day, we target 2 or 3 "faces" who we try to capture interviews with.
 
Today's #1 target was Double Bracelet Winner John Gale, who happens to be a good personal friend of mine, so no problem getting him. Or is there?

We have made 5 attempts so far, & something went wrong every time. So today was the day.......

Originally, the plan was to interview him during the Flight 1a Dinner Break. John suggested we do the interview in the Chinese Restaurant, whilst he was eating dinner, & he offered to buy me dinner, too.

But you can't really interview someone who is eating, can you? It's just wrong. And you can't interview whilst eating, either, so we had a change of plan - do it as soon as Flight 1a finished.

So with 20 minutes to the end of play, Dan set all the gear up, he found a nice spot (NOT the Media Room) & we were all set. Dan went to fetch John, & - yes, you've guessed it - John had busted, & disappeared.

Tomorrow, we'll try again........

Tikay10

The 1b Flight return from Dinner Break in a few minutes, & will be playing until around 4am.

We have been here since 9am this morning, & need to be back at 9am on Wednesday morning, so I'm sorry to say, we'll be logging off for the night shortly, it's just too much to continue right through until 4am.

Tomorrow the playing hours are far more sensible, so we'll be here until play ends. Tonight, not so much. 

Thanks for reading.

If you have any questions, fire away please, it's much more fun when it's interactive, & we know people are viewing the thread.

For now, though.....



  

Sky_SamT

I managed to catch up with Tim Rowland after his exploits today.

He advised me that he was very tired and hungry after a long day playing poker, but it could have been much shorter. Tim was down to only a few big blinds when Tikay walked past earlier today. Somehow this gave him some inspiration and he soon got to work.

"There was one villian on the table who was playing very aggressively. 3 and 4 betting most people and winning a lot of pots without showdown. One particular hand we got it in on an A J 8 board with my QQ against his QJ only for him to hit running cards to make a flush. Soon after however we got it in again and again I had QQ this time against 89 on a 3 8 10 board and held. From here I bust a few short stacks with hands like JJ and AK and was generally trouble free."

Tim's table then broke and he was moved from the Pavillion room into Brasilia. 

"On my new table there was me and a another large stack who got to work 3 betting a lot of opens from the shorter stacks and accumulating chips without showdown. I managed to stay above average for most of the day and will come back tomorrow with 67k"

The blinds when the players come back tomorrow will be 500/1000 so Tim has plenty of play left in him and will be hoping to be still around when the bubble is expected to burst roughly half way through tomorrow. The prizepool continues to swell as the number of runners heads towards 5000.

I am hoping to catch up with some more day 2 qualifiers before play begins tomorrow.

Sky_SamT

To tie up Day 1A, David Maudlin will return with 28,600 and Lee Rogers has bagged 19,500.

FCHD

GB Counts from Day 1A (rounded to nearest 1000 chips)

  3 Craig McCorkell (145K)
 15 Paul Davies (111K)
 48 Rupom Pal (80K)
 55 Niall Farrell (78K)
 67 Andrew Seden (73K)
 77 David Longmate (69K)
 82 Timothy Rowland (67K)
 88 Christopher Vernon (64K)
101 Paul McTaggart (60K)
148 William Chataway (51K)
172 Kevin Williams (48K)
180 James Rann (47K)
188 Rodger Reynolds (46K)
207 John Black (43K)
211 Marti Sergio (42K)
213 Alex Goulder (42K)
223 Mark Brecht (41K)
235 Tim Davie (40K)
305 Joseph Carr-Hill (31K)
320 David Maudlin (29K)
335 Asa Smith (27K)
341 Tim Hickling (26K)
343 Chris Moorman (26K)
344 Richard Milne (26K)
408 Lee Rogers (20K)
428 Jake Cody (18K)
443 Stephen Chidwick (16K)
508 Luke Marsh (10K)

Apologies to anyone I've missed out.

Tikay10

Good work Barny, thank you.

VespaPX

Just catching up whilst having breakfast.

Compelling reading guys

Thanks

FCHD

Day 1B GB qualifiers

Simon Deadman 78K
Adam Owen 67K
Sebastian Saffari 65K
Benjamin Rolle 56K
Jamie Chang 63K
Victor Ilyukhin 51K
Adrian Gray 50K
Jareth East 50K
Stephen Bellamy 50K
Xizye Yuan 45K
Simon Cameron 43K
Roberto Romanello 41K
David Vamplew 40K
Oliver Price 39K
Ryan Spittles 38K
Daniel O'Callaghan 38K
Gerard Gardner 37K
Ross Grieg 35K
Philip Green 34K
Steven Lundie 34K
Paul Jackson 30K
Nick Hicks 30K
Martins Adeniya 30K
Peter Vu 28K
Patryk Slusarek 27K
Pratik Ghathe 27K
Chiraag Thanki 25K
Daniel Merrilees 21K
Praz Bansi 17K

1047 players still have chips, 468 will get paid.


If my preliminary work is correct, that's 8 Sky qualifiers making it through to Day 2. I'll start to see if I can find some table draws.

Sky_SamT

To add to FCHD, we also have a few more still going strong.

David Watkin - 48,000

Arpad Demeter - 35,000

Alex Graham - 30,500

I make that 11 players advancing to day 2 and a very busy day for Tikay and I.

I will catch up with some the guys before the cards go in the air at 2pm (10pm UK time)

FCHD

I'm not 100% sure if these are the table line-ups at the end of Day 1 or for the start of Day 2, anyway here goes

Table Amazon 433
1 Adam Coats (USA) 73100
2 Claude Gunraj (CAN) 28500
3 Rommel Berges (BIZ) 47600
4 Clyde Lorance (USA) 57900
5 Andrey Pateychuk (RUS) 61200
6 TIM ROWLAND (GBR) 66800
7 Mikolaj Zawadzki (POL) 34100
8 Baruch Thaler (USA) 14900
9 Dana Kellstrom (USA) 14200

Table Amazon 429
1 Kim Nguyen (USA) 22700
2 Did not report 61300
3 Carlos Chang (TPE) 133500
4 Markus Gonsalves (USA) 21700
5 Koray Aldemir (AUT) 45500
6 DAVID MAUDLIN (GBR) 28600
7 Allen Cunningham (USA) 39200
8 Yuliyan Kolev (BUL) 62000
9 Michael Winslow (USA) 39500
David's drawn one of the top 5 chip counts in Seat 3 and one of the biggest names in Seat 7.

Table Amazon 351
1 Bryan Leskowitz (USA) 38600
2 Niall Farrell (GBR) 78300
3 Rayan Chamas (CAN) 20500
4 Kunal Patni (USA) 47000
5 LEE ROGERS (GBR) 19500
6 Sebastian Saffari (GBR) 65000
7 Did not repott 30900
8 Bruce Secor (USA) 7900
9 Dave Setic (AUS) 17100
A Brit-centric line-up


Table Amazon 421
1 Patrick Truong (USA) 12100
2 Luca Moschitta (ITA) 50000
3 Constantine Apazidis (USA) 10500
4 Michael Rocco (USA) 20300
5 Tyler Palmer (USA) 11200
6 SIMON CAMERON (GBR) 43200
7 Paul McCaffrey (USA) 54500
8 Maxime Chillaud (FRA) 9700
9 Justin Vitale (USA) 17300

Table Pavilion 150
1 Philip Tom (USA) 3600
2 GERARD GARDNER (GBR) 36900
3 Pedro Marte (BRA) 63100
4 Marcello Miniucchi (ITA) 16700
5 Kevin McGuinness (USA) 29600
6 Thu Nugyen (USA) 77300
7 Christoper Conrad (USA) 89900
8 Ben Abrahams (GUA? maybe British) 17800
9 Did not report 30500

Table Amazon 396
1 Lloyd Bonner (CAN) 20800
2 Michael Mizrachi (GBR) 112300
3 Artem Metalidi (UKR) 21400
4 PHILIP GREEN (GBR) 34300
5 Armin Eckl (DEN) 37600
6 Ilkin Amirov (AZE) 32000
7 Tim Hickling (GBR) 26300
8 Adrian Baran (CAN) 26100
9 Brian Shaw (USA) 17300
So Philip's got The Grinder. Not just that but The Grnder with chps.


Table Pavilion 156
1 Jonathan Hilton (USA) 37700
2 Paulo Bandeira (BRA) 14400
3 Joe McGowan (USA) 24500
4 Aditya Sushant (IND) 24600
5 STEVEN LUNDIE (GBR) 33800
6 Shawn Quint (MEX) 36300
7 Chase Fredensburg (USA) 46600
8 Laurynas Levinskas (LTU) 30100
9 Joshua Lamm (USA) 71900

Table Pavilon 157
1 Mark Davidoff (USA) 79800
2 Benjamin Rolle (GBR) 56100
3 Charley McLean (USA) 100900
4 Steve Foutty (USA) 59000
5 PAUL JACKSON (GBR) 30100
6 Jason Wheeler (USA) 61600
7 Benjamin Dadon (IRL) 28700
8 Jean-Pascal Savard (CAN) 38800
9 Marco Gonzales (BRA) 24100

Table Pavilion 151
1 Bo Hu (USA) 30500
2 Sergey Kudryavtsey (RUS) 36200
3 Peter Lubrano (USA) 18900
4 Jason Patel (USA) 16700
5 Elizabeth Montizanti (USA) 68900
6 Hou Vang (USA) 17700
7 Zachary Herrera (USA) 27700
8 Johnathan Geddert (USA) 7700
9 DAVID WATKIN (GBR) 48000

Table Amazon 422
1 Joe Serock (USA) 22800
2 Frank Fernholz (GER) 44400
3 Joshua Billingsley (USA) 39400
4 Alex Bilkour (RUS) 1
5 Garrett Beckman (USA) 117200
6 Tzu Yen (USA) 29400
7 Erwann Pecheux (FRA) 43100
8 Apoorva Goel (IND) 22100
9 ARPAD DEMETER (GBR) 35000

Table Amazon 398
1 James Grant (USA) 40300
2 ALEX GRAHAM (GBR) 30500
3 Salvatre Bonavena (ITA) 34400
4 Daniel Buzgon (USA) 63200
5 Esa Karttunen (FIN) 25600
6 Thomas Hueber (AUT) 33000
7 Svetlozar Nestorov (USA) 11700
8 Mohsin Charania (USA) 48100
9 Raminder Singh (USA) 78700


Both David & Alex were shown as from Estonia & Arpad from Gabon which is why I missed them first time around.

Good luck to all 11. (and Ryan, and James Rann etc.). Ryan has drawn the same table as Praz Bansi, James shares his with recent bracelet winner Thiago Nishijima.

TommyD

Very well played everyone and many congrats to the guys who made day 2!!!

Now spin it up and get yourselves in the position to FT, best of luck!

Ok, now I want to hear some stories about certain characters our guys came across.  Famous people/players, interesting fancy dress, people who possess questionable sanity, the varied smells found in a Desert casino.  Make me imagine I'm there!

Sky_SamT

From the WSOP site:

After two flights and hundreds of re-entries, this year's Little One for One Drop has reached a total field of 4,555. 468 players will be paid, with a min-cash being worth $1,803 and the first place winner receiving $645,969 and the WSOP gold bracelet.

11 Sky Poker players still harbour ambitions of that $645,969 and a shiny WSOP bracelet.

Simmy4k

There must be another hero called simon cameron because i bust around 1am. Thanks a lot for providing updates and inspiring motivation all day sam and tk. It must have been a tiring day for you guys!

I had a lot of fun playing the tourney myself. Was a great atmosphere all day and im gutted not to have carried a stack into day 2. 

Good luck to everyone one who is still in. Hopefully we can get a couple of deep runs and fun rails!!!

FCHD

The Simon Cameron in the chip counts is listed as being from Newcastle upon Tyne.