The Amazon Room is big enough to land a jet in, and for days Sihoki Slot tournament tables have filled the floor, with the sound of shuffling chips occupying the space in between. Now when a table breaks, it literally breaks – a crew comes in to stack up all the chairs, take off the rail, fold up the legs and store the table in the Rio attic until next year. The sound of rifling chips has dimmed from a constant murmur to a slight whisper, and each player tries to hang on to the seat so many dream about for as long as he can.
One such player is Nicolai Vivet from Copenhagen, Denmark. Nicolai made his way to the WSOP by using his Party points for an entry, and this is his first main event appearance. Already he’s outlasted nearly all of the big name pros that played in this year’s event and guaranteed himself a minimum $50,000 payday. Nicolai’s name may have only recently begun showing up on tournament winners lists, but he’s no novice to poker. He is a high-stakes limit player, playing the $100/$200 games on Party when not developing his no-limit tournament skills.
I spoke with Nicolai briefly during a break where he reported that he’s been having a great time playing. He’s had chipleader Jamie Gold on his right for most of the day, and recently his table was relocated to the feature table on the ESPN stage, where Humberto Brenes has been holding court with his always entertaining antics.
Nicolai has built his chip stack up today, but not without making some heart-pounding decisions. You’ll catch him on ESPN for sure when they show his calling the all-in of another featured table player, with his pocket nines versus the other’s A5. Despite being a 69% favorite to win, Nicolai’s face showed the anxiety you’d expect from someone putting a lot of chips on the line in the biggest poker tournament in the world. His hand held up, sending his opponent to the rail, and pushing him up in the chip count.
Currently Nicolai is sitting with T700,000, putting him right in the middle of the remaining field. I’ll keep an eye on his progress today and report back to you.
The Three R’s of Poker?
Party man Richard Wyrick apparently just tripled up … increasing his chip count to 870k! That’s still a below-average stack, but good enough to hang in there longer and play some real cards. (We’ll see if we can get you some info about the hand that did it for him.)
Paul Raeburn continues to hold strong with 1.1 million.
Meanwhile, Rob Roseman picked up about half-a-million chips recently and is in 7th chip position … with a comfortably above-average stack of 2.1 million.
We have a plan (we think)
Straight from the horse’s (suit’s) mouth: Play down to 54 players today or five levels, whichever comes first…day off on Wednesday.
As one noted poker writer nearby said, “Or until they come up with something else.”
O’Reilly Doubles Up
I spoke to Scott O’Reilly at the end of their last break this afternoon. He said he was down a little.
“I’ve just got to double up,” he said.
According to Card Player, Scott doubled up when he went all-in against Mikael Thuritz. Scott’s pocket Js held up agains Mikael’s poket Ks when he made a set on the flop. Scott’s double up gives him 600K.
