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July 13, 2005
WORLD SERIES OF POKER 'All-in' tactics spell trouble for top players
By DON McDERMOTT
Chris (Jesus) Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker, T.J. Cloutier, Doyle Brunson, and Men (The Master) Nyguen - all of whom were standout poker players, but became household names because of constant television exposure over the past couple years - were bounced early from the World Series that featured numerous heads-up battles. Whoever could survive these all-in showdowns moved on, substantially increasing their chip stacks. The losers either went home or faced an uphill battle with inadequate chip power. Today, the action at the Rio Casino-Hotel concludes; Thursday and Friday, the tournament moves to Binion's in downtown Las Vegas, as part of the city's Centennial celebration. At 2 p.m. Tuesday, the chip leader was 2004 champion Greg (Fossilman) Raymer, who had accumulated $1,064,000; in second was Las Vegan Rod Pardey Jr., who had $1,041,000. Phil Ivey was seventh with $722,500. Of the record 5,619 who entered the $10,000-buy-in championship event - 199 were left when the Tuesday round began. The top 560 were on the pay list. The last-place competitor received $12,500 from a record $52,818,610 prize pool. All of the final table players will be paid at least $1 million, with $4.25 million going to the runnerup. In 2004, Raymer received $5 million of a $23 million prize pool. At 1 a.m. Tuesday, Raymer was ninth among the remaining players with a chip stack of $318,700. Also alive in what has been a pressure-packed, controversy-filled tournament, were: • Russell Salzer, $412,500; he won one of the preliminary tournaments this year; • 2003 final table player Jason Lester, $280,000; • J.C. Tran, $259,500; • Kenna James, $287,500; • John Juanda, $354,000; • Howard Lederer, Annie Duke's brother, $496,500; • Dutch Boyd, one of the members of the 'Brat Pack' of poker, $92,000; • Mike Matasow, $454,000; • David Plastik, $342,500. NOTES - Norway, Scotland, United Kingdom, British Columbia, Denmark, Belize, Quebec, Sweden, Finland, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Moscow, Brazil, France, and Hungary were represented in Days 2 and 3 ... The roster included Richard Cohen; he listed his address as "Parts Unknown" ... Giving the tournament intergalactic presence was Paul (X-22) Magriel, who said he dwells on "Planet X." |
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