WPT Championship Day 1

[The Prince]

Joe Cassidy leads the field. David Sklansky still in with 51,975 in chips.

More info here:

http://www.wptinsider.com/news/WPTChampionship2_1.asp

Nicolas Fradet (The Prince)

[WinBig]

Another website with info is Poker3000.com which lists the starting table assignments for today as well as all chip totals after day one. It also said Chip Jett went out on a tough beat when his set of K's wasn't good enough for a one outer Q that gave his opponent quads.

I would think play would be a little conservative with starting chip totals of 50,000. Blinds start this morning at 400/800 with 100 ante so that should be plenty of time to wait for a good hand for someone that has 30K in chips. I noticed the WPT Insider write-up did not include Phil Hellmuth as a player of note. A snub or an honest mistake? Poor Phil!

[ClunkerDuds]

Here are some of the more interesting chip counts:

Ben Affleck: 92,900
Daniel Negreanu: 46,325
Erik Seidel: 14,300
JOE CASSIDY 195,650 (1st)
JOHNNY CHAN 125,300 (13th)

Anyone with any info on how the hell Ben Affleck got chips would be nice.

[daryn]

last i heard poker was a game with a high short-term luck factor. in other words even the biggest idiot could amass chips fairly easily.

that said, i'm not saying affleck is an idiot, in fact i've heard he plays well, but even that is not 100% certain.

[astroglide]

as far as i know, he has only played in one televised event. would you care to illustrate which hands make him a bad player?

[cferejohn]

Doyle Brunson couldn't say enough nice things about how well Affleck and Damon played poker. I don't know how sincere it was, but the interviewer got the impression that he was genuinely surprised.

Affleck has always seemed like a bright guy; I don't know why he shouldn't be smart enough to be a good enough poker player to amass a good deal of chips early in a poker tournament. If he's still there at the end, I'll be impressed.

[italianstang]

Helmuth's name was on the list of players who were signed up at the Bellagio, and I watched the first hour or so of the tournament and I didn't see him anywhere. He is hard to miss given how tall he is and what a jackass he sounds like. Maybe he just let his chips get blinded off for a while and didnt show up at the beginning.

[rbenuck4]

I watched the celebrity home game he played in, and while he was a much better player than the other 5 he was playing with, there was one hand that indicated to me that he was a mediocre player at best.

I don't remember the exact details, but he was dealt AK in the small blind, and there were a few limpers, and he raised it only slightly (maybe to like 500 when the blinds were 100 200). Everyone of the limpers called. The flop came out blanks. He came out betting 500.

That to me is a weak bet, by a weak player.

Flame away

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't remember the exact details...

[/ QUOTE ]

I stopped reading after that.

C'mon...it's ALL IN the details.

[astroglide]

that is also 1 hand about which you do not even recall the details.