One of the summer’s most prestigious tournament—Event #29 $5,000 H.O.R.S.E.—took place at the 2013 World Series of Poker today, and 261 of the game’s best turned out to create a prize pool of $1,226,700. That will be distributed to the top 32 players, with $318,955 reserved for first. The man best positioned to capture that cash, along with a gold bracelet, is Chris Klodnicki, who led the surviving 151 players with 65,100 in chips. Not far behind with 62,600 is Tom Schneider, who won his third gold bracelet just last week.
This was a limit event, so action wasn’t as intense as it is in either no-limit hold’em or pot-limit Omaha. Still, the tournament saw its fair share of eliminations including Yuval Bronshtein, Jason Mercier, Scotty Nguyem, John Hennigan, Mike Wattel, Eric Crain, Frank Kassela, Shannon Shorr, Stephen Chidwick, Scott Seiver, Dan Shak, defending champ David “Bakes” Baker and the legendary Phil Ivey.
Ivey was crippled in Level 7 in a big hand against David Williams, who seemed to be among the chip leaders most of the day. It happened in Stud with the following cards showing:
Phil Ivey: / /
David Singer: / Fold
David Williams: / /
Ivey had the bring in with the . Singer completed with the , Williams called and Ivey came along to fourth. It appeared Singer, who caught an ace, led out and received calls from both Williams and Ivey. Singer then checked fifth, Williams bet and only Ivey called. Ivey then called a bet on sixth before folding to one on seventh. Ivey left himself with just 1,300 while Williams chipped up to 57,500. Not long after, Ivey would hit the rail in the same hand as Seiver.
While many fell, there are still plenty of stars in the field including the 2011 champ Fabrice Soulier (61,100); bracelet winner Adam Friedman (61,000); former November Niner Eric Buchman (50,100); South American sensation Nacho Barbero (48,000); current Player of the Year leader Daniel Negreanu (45,000); eight-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel (41,100); Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi (29,500); thirteen-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth (29,500); and Dan Kelly (24,000), who has already cashed seven times at the 2013 WSOP!
Day 2 is set to kick off at 14:00 PST in the Tan Section of the Amazon Room. Join us then as we look to make the money on our way down to the final table. Until then, check out the interview Sarah Grant did with Justin "Boosted J" Smith during a break in today's H.O.R.S.E. event.
The remaining players will play four more hands before bagging and tagging for the night. We're headed out to the field to grab any last-minute action and to get some notable chips counts, so stay tuned for those as well as a full recap of the Day 1 action.
Today marked the start of the World Series of Poker for Dan Shak, who was playing in his first event of the summer. Shak got a good night's worth of play, but he will not be advancing to Day 2. We missed his elimination hand, but we can confirm that Shak has been eliminated with about 15 minute remaining in the night.
"Hey PokerNews. Ivey and Seiver are all in." stated Allen Kessler towards the PokerNews blogging desk.
Rushing over to the table to see what was happening, we found Ivey and Seiver all in for their last few thousand.
Ivey started with / while Seiver had a pair of queens. The opponent that had them both covered had a dominating / .
Seiver mucked his hand knowing he was drawing dead on seventh while Ivey's opponent flipped over an ace to leave Ivey drawing to a seven or four. Unfortunately for Ivey he caught the and was headed to the rail alongside Seiver.
Just before the level went up, Phil Ivey was involved in two Omaha Hi-Lo hands that saw him commit his paltry stack.
In the first, the big blind bet a flop, Scott Seiver called and Ivey called off his last 100 from the button. Seiver proceeded to call bets on both the turn and river before showing . The big blind revealed the and he and Seiver chopped the side. Ivey then tabled the for trip queens and half the main pot.
Not long after, we found Ivey all in and three other players in the hand with a board reading . Allen Kessler led out with a bet on the river and the two players in between him and Ivey quickly folded.
"Good game," Seiver told Ivey knowing that Kessler only bet big hands. Sure enough, Kessler tabled the for rivered trips. Without saying a words Ivey rolled over the for a full house.
"Ivey just wakes up with aces," a player said in disbelief.
"How much do you have?" Ivey then whispered to Seiver.
/ 
Fold
/ 
while Seiver had a pair of queens. The opponent that had them both covered had a dominating 
/ 
and was headed to the rail alongside Seiver.
flop, Scott Seiver called and Ivey called off his last 100 from the button. Seiver proceeded to call bets on both the 
river before showing 
and he and Seiver chopped the side. Ivey then tabled the 
. Allen Kessler led out with a bet on the river and the two players in between him and Ivey quickly folded.
for a full house.