Miika Puumalainen Eliminated in 59th Place ($108,047)

It took two hands to eliminate Miika Puumalainen from this year’s Main Event, but they came in rapid succession. It was the first hand that was most damaging.

Action folded to Puumalainen in the small blind. He limped into the pot in front of big blind Francois Balmigere, who raised to 150,000.

Puumalainen’s response was to shove all in for about 2.3 million chips. Balmigere gave the matter a few moments’ thought and then called all in for slightly less, about 2.15 million.

Puumalainen: {A-Spades} {3-Diamonds}

Balmigere: {J-Clubs} {J-Hearts}

The board rolled out {8-Diamonds} {4-Spades} {8-Spades} {k-Clubs} {2- Diamonds}. That was no help for Puumalainen, crippling him to about 105,000. Those chips went in on the next hand with {7-Diamonds} {6- Clubs} after Craig Boyd opened for 125,000 with {K-Diamonds} {9- Hearts}. Once again the board was no help for Puumalainen, and this time he was not left with any chips. He’s out.

Congratulations to Miika on a great deep run!

PartyPoker.com still has three runners:

Miika Puumalainen 2,894,000

Aaron Coulthard 901,000

Maurizio Saieva 837,000

Maurizio is a member of the Italian Poker Team and with only four Italians left in the event – three of them are on the same table today.

Miika starts on the ESPN feature table. Pictures and more information to follow later. All players receive bonuses for getting this far through the Leaderboard promotion!

Good luck everyone!

Today saw the end of Mike Sexton, who cashed for $27,469 after finishing in 420th. This comes the week he was announced as one of the ten candidates for the Poker Hall of Fame.

Congratulations to all those qualifiers that made the money and those that live to fight another day. Full details below:

647th – Staffan Fogelberg $21,365
447th – Randy Armitage $25,027
420th – Mike Sexton $27,469

Through to Day 5:

Miika Puumalainen 1,492,000

Aaron Coulthard 502,000
Ashley Cheung 220,000
Remy Biechel 130,00

Also still in is Maurizio Saieva (Italian Poker Team) 412,000

PartyPoker had 26 players still in the tournament and there was a definite air of nervous excitement in the Mike Sexton Suite this morning as the players arrived for breakfast. Our highest placed player was Miika from Finland who was in 12th position overall.

We also had Mike Sexton on 169,000 chips at the start of play. In total we had players starting with stacks as low as 26,800 and as high as 361,200. The short stacks would need to make a move because the blinds were starting at 600/1200 with a 200 ante. It was too expensive just to sit and wait for pocket aces.

No sooner had the guys gone off to take their seats then we had our first elimination of the day. Romain from France got his remaining chips in good with ace ten but was called by a player looking down at a pair of Jacks. The Jacks held up and we had our first casualty. “I will think about that hand for a long time” Romain told me as he headed for one of the massage chairs.

At the first break I was only aware of two further eliminations including Magnus from Sweden. Mike Sexton had chipped up to about 220,000 and Miika was still at about 350,000 chips. A couple of the guys had lost of chips with Petter from Norway crashing from over 220,000 to 50,000.

After the break I went back to the tournament room and quickly picked up on the rumour going around that Phil Ivey was now sat with renowned French player Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. This table was attracting more than its fair share of railbirds, particularly as it was right next to the door.

On the next table I could see a quiet Phil Hellmuth who probably did not enjoy the fact that the attention was not all on him, but he was getting on with his business all the same.

Over at the TV feature table, There was a good old battle going on with 2005 Main event champion, Joe Hachem in the thick of all the best action.

Joe Hachem on the TV table

Just before the dinner break, one of my tips to go deep in this tournament, Katja from Norway came back into the suite and told me her WSOP dream was all over for another year. Katja never stops smiling even after busting out of the tournament but I’m sure she had a great time and will be back next year to try again.

As the players came back for the dinner break we worked out that we have either 11 or 12 players from the starting 26 still in the tournament. It is hard to keep track because some players come and tell us when they are out and others get the first cab back to the hotel.

Mike Sexton was now up to 330,000 chips and Miika was still hovering around the 370,000 mark. Other players had over 200,000 chips so I hope we see a good number of them make it through to day four and the money. As I write this we have just over 1 full level to go and there are 981 out of 6494 starting players left in the main event. The top 648 places will get paid.

That is it from me. I am about to jump on a plane and go back home after two enjoyable weeks in Las Vegas. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Warren who will provide all the player updates and chips counts. Good luck to all our remaining players.

Jeremy Coleman

The big news for Day 1 D was simply the amount of players trying to register themselves for the main event. The tournament organisers were expecting it to be busy, possibly even selling out but they surely could not have expected the scenes that greeted us yesterday as we arrived at The Rio at 10am. There were at least 300 people queuing past The Mike Sexton Suite all the way up to the registration desks. Some people had been waiting since about 3am, concerned that they would not get their seat.

After a lot of confusion and in some cases arguing, a total of 2809 players were allowed to sit down and take their seats in Day 1D. This was the maximum amount that could possibly squeeze into the rooms available and left over 800 very angry and disappointed players outside. Most got their buy-ins back if they won a seat in the satellites.

I know poker players sometimes like to make a dramatic entrance or feel that a certain starting day is special to them but because of the 4th of July holiday weekend it was a sure bet that Day 1D would be far more popular than the previous 3 starting days. What must make it annoying for the 800 unlucky players today is that Day 1B only had just over 870 players so there was plenty of room on that day.

With all that excitement over, the 2809 players got down to the business in hand (excuse the pun) which was to play some poker. I heard an interesting story as I walked past the ESPN feature table. Apparently the table that Phil Ivey was sat at had been invited to sit at the ESPN TV feature table and moved over to sit down when Mr Ivey decided he didn’t want to sit there so they all moved back again. The other guys were devastated because they can pick up sponsorship money and other privileges when they are lucky enough to reach the table.

Now that we have the total number of players we have the following facts for this years Main Event:

• Total Players 6494
• Total Prize Pool $61,043,600
• First Prize Approx $8,500,000
• Top 648 players will get paid.

This years November Nine will make a minimum of approx $1,000,000 each

By the time we got to the days end and the chips were being bagged up, we had a clear chip leader for the whole tournament. Troy Webber ended the day on more than double his nearest challenger today after taking down a sizeable pot when his trip 8’s held up against a player who had pocket queens. Partypoker had two players who finished the day on just over 100,000 chips. Grass roots player Bodo Sbrzesny and Fabian Quoss from Germany will go into Day 2B in a strong position.

Some notable results include the two guys who came first and second in last years main event. Last years winner, Peter Eastgate ended his day with a respectable 42000 chips whilst runner up Ivan Demidov’s tournament ended before the dinner break.

Tomorrow we start Day 2A with 1460 players all hoping to take another step closer to the final table.

Jeremy Coleman

I was with Ian and many other poker players like Tony G, Roland de Wolfe, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott and Nam Le at a birthday party in Blush at the Wynn until late. It would be fair to say that Ian felt as rough as I looked this morning. Despite that he picked up some nice pots early on but sunk back a bit as he ended the day with 17525 chips. So far we have had 3685 entrants and with tomorrow predicting over 2000 runners we should reach somewhere close to 6000 total players.

This is lower than everyone was expecting considering the record numbers on entrants who played in some of the early side events. Perhaps in the current economic climate, many players were comfortable with playing in a $1500 side event rather than the $10,000 main event.

Ricardo Sibelo had one of his poker dreams come true today when he was asked to sit on the ESPN feature table next to well known pro Daniel Negreanu. Ricardo came back at the first break and shared his good fortune with the other players all of whom were pleased for him but probably also a little jealous. I know I would have been. Ricardo didn’t let the bright lights of the cameras put him off his game because he got through today and will be back for Day 2B with 18200 chips to play with. Well Done Ricardo

The Chip counts for our players today is most impressive. Twenty one out of twenty nine players are still in the tournament and will be back on Wednesday for Day 2B. Yesterdays overall chip leader was Joseph Cada who managed to accumulate a very nice 187225 chips. Anyone starting with more than about 60,000 chips is in a very strong position for Day 2 but as the saying goes – as long as you have a chip and a chair. Good luck to them all.

Philip Boer 84825
Jack Powell 74425
Petter Hammer 67100
Jonathan Driscol 61400
Glenn Slater 59000
Rasmus Hansen 56675
Philip Green 52375
Fredrick Andren 47300
Salvador Villaluz 42450
Todd Sisley 37125
Anthony Lansdell 31150
Sebastian Panny 29300
Jonas Gutteck 25575
Ricky Tang 20725

Ricardo Sibelo 18200
Marcos Palermo 18175
Ian Frazer 17525
Morten Christiansen 16250
Marlis Sawicki 14550
Joakim Noren Olsson 14475
Aaron Armstrong 11325
Staffen Fogelberg out
David Normoyle out
Jan Zimmermann out
Claus Anderson out
Peiter Van Gils out
Stefan Kahlet out
Geradus Korse out
Sven Erik Kristiansen out

Day 1C

The Phil Hellmuth show rolled into town today. The rumour buzzed around quite quickly that Phil and his entourage would soon be arriving so I grabbed a camera and joined the waiting throng. There were lots of camera crews and photographers waiting and yet current WSOP main event champion Peter Eastgate managed to walk in the door and past all of them without anyone recognizing him.

Waiting for Phil’s arrival were about 100 beautiful girls dressed identically in roman style clothes. And finally he arrived. Dressed up as a roman gladiator he arrived being carried above the heads of other roman gladiators. The girls all lined up to welcome Phil into the building and threw rose petals at his feet like he was royalty. Phil was obviously loving every minute judging by the huge smile on his face.

I managed to get a couple a good shots as you can see.

I’m not sure that Phil’s sense of timing was all that great. He arrived almost 2 hours late and just 10 minutes before the first break of the day. I’m not sure if he was planning on staying dressed like that all day but I would imagine that toga would get pretty uncomfortable after a while.

Regards

The PartyPoker team

Day 1 B was a much quieter affair with only 873 players sitting down. This was possibly because it was 4th of July and a big holiday weekend here in the US. PartyPoker had 23 players starting their journey towards WSOP fame and fortune. For some it was the first time they have played in a big live tournament. One guy has made his way to Las Vegas for a cost of only $8 and won his way through to one of our weekly satellites where he won his $12,000 package.

The suite was busy again today as players enjoyed the great food and took the opportunity to relax during the breaks. Every now and again, we would see a famous face walk by and a ripple of excitement would run through the room as people rushed to take a look. As promised yesterday I managed to take a couple of photos of Scotty Nguyen and Antonio Esfandiari which we will attach to this post soon.

The main tournament room was still very busy despite the lower number of players playing today. Moving around the room in the early part of the afternoon I could see that most of our players were doing fine. The way the room is set up, I have to stay behind the rail and cannot walk around freely like I have done in previous smaller tournaments.

This makes it impossible to cover a lot of the play in any real detail because I am so far away from most of the players. I get to hear about the major hands that players were involved in when they come back to the suite during the breaks and start swapping stories about the big pots they were involved in and the bad beats they have witnessed.

We have players here from all over the world and although many players naturally talk to guys from their own country, there is also a great deal of team spirit among the group. The players and their guests have developed a real sense of camaraderie which we always see with PartyPoker players. That’s why they are the best group of players in poker.

When it came to bag up the chips I was surprised that we had lost so many of our players. Ten players managed to survive to see day 2.
Here are the chip counts for our PartyPoker players.

Jannick Wrang 82350
Katja Svendsen 64750
Ettore Di Leva 52750
Alexander Luber 51125
Charles Wale 46775
Ashley Cheung 44725
Ales Kalan 44350
Martin Raus 44250
Marcus Balmert 38650
Tom Ahlberg 5200
Erik Backlund out
Manuel Barbero Ballesteros out
Peter Andreas Bondeson out
Marco Cafolla out
Donne Rontin out
Jiri Hlavaty out
Vincent Konkuyt out
Felix Lambertz out
Dennis Nikitorut out
Patrick Smith out
Danilo Souza out
Jon Cudney out
Michael Zauner out

With only 4 levels each day we are expecting a larger percentage of players to make it through to Day 2 than previous years. Many of the PartyPoker players had a good start to their tournament and most of those that are still in finished with a higher stack than the 30,000 starting chips.

These are the chip counts for our players at the end of Day 1 A.

Torsten Brinkmann 74625
Christian Jeppsson 65475
Rory Rees Brennan 61900
mikka Puumalainen 61375
Felipe Ramos 59125
Jakob Karlsson 57175
Aaron Coulthard 52800
Jude Ainsworth 49825
magnus Cornmark 45375
Tobias Reinkemeier 42450
kristain Kverneland 35200
Matin Talebi 34300
Allan Peers 29500
Anders Vind 29150
Thomas Froslev out
Sarantis Prinopoulos out
Miguel Proulx out
Sander Van de Ruit out
Helmert van der Veld out
Nicolai Vivet out

The boys from Norway in some new clothes. (the cases have still not arrived)

Andreas welcomes Katja from Norway and Pia from Denmark to the party.   :)

The Poker Italia Team make a very quiet entrance and pose for a team photo

Ian Frazer, His charming wife, Padraig Parkinson and Eddie Hearn seem pleased when I ask if they would like another drink.

The new PartyPoker Grassroots team of poker professionals,
Ian Frazer from England, Bodo from Germany, Remi Biechel from France, Mike Sexton, Felipe ‘Majave’ Ramos.

Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott gets friendly with former Chelsea and France footballer Frank Leboeuf.

Our beautiful waitresses for the evening.