My Thoughts On The Past Three Weeks At The Wynn
Steve Hall looks back at eventful recent activites down at the Wynn...
By Steve Hall 31st March 2008
"How sick must Jennicide be? Her two ex-poker boyfriends, Gavin Griffin and Brandon Cantu both winning over a million."My thoughts on the past three weeks at the Wynn.
First of all the staff are very professional.
Tournament director David Eglseder (I still have to check my spelling) followed Deborah Giardina down from Canterbury Mn. The staff are miked up. Like the security staff, so they don't have to shout across the room.
Why stay anywhere else when they had a players rate of $129 midweek? You didn't have to put in a 12 hour shift to qualify either.
The $20 food comps almost eliminated the juice on most tournaments. The best bet, by far, was the lunch buffet for an additional $2.10.
A dream result in the promotion to win a seat in the ME. The winner, Ethiopian born AA Tesemu, won $35k, plus $2 for the lunch buffet. AA has been around the Vegas rooms for a decade now and this is his biggest tournament payday.
Maybe he will have a suite here in the future and replace Daniel Negreanu as poker ambassador! We have a lot of Ethiopian taxi drivers in Vegas.
The event kicked off with a $500 tournament. A massive success with 621 players.
Brandon Cantu warmed up here before his win in San Jose. One final table and two deep runs and he was ready for the $1m win.
How sick must Jennicide be? Her two ex-poker boyfriends, Gavin Griffin and Brandon both winning over a million. Still she has her Playboy money.
With the big names in San Jose it was almost like a poker academy giving me a chance to spot some dark horses for WSOP bracelets. Making multi final tables Mike Coglianese, Tommy Tran, Ardavan Yazdi, Brian Wolf, Scott Epstein, Frank Rusnak, John Gordon Ali Sarkeshik.
Mike Coglianese would be top of that list.
Ali was one of three visitors from England to cash. Eileen Kelly (Burnley) and JA Chapman (Brighton) both made brief appearances on the boxing ring styled final table.
Josh Arieh decided to stop off in Vegas on his way back home to Atlanta from San Jose. He took advantage of a rare chance to play PLO to take an extra $59k home.
Onto the main event. 183 players down from last years 198. The top end was also missing. No Brunsons, Forrest, Negreanu, Gold, Yang, JC Tran, Nam Le, Hansen, Greenstein, Ivey, Benyamine, Brad Booth, Sam Farha, Kenny Tran, Hellmuth, Devilfish or Marcel Luske.
This could be an ominous sign. The WSOP is going to be more expensive than ever to play with eight $10k and the $50k HORSE. Are the top end players feeling the financial pressure?
The massage ladies were about as busy as a Harrods in Rotherham would be.
Without TV coverage I feel the tournament should be $5k. I predict the winner would still take home $500k.
The winner or Wynner was Chris Moore from Chicago. He was third last year.
The likeable twentysomething took home $692k.
The worst play of the tournament was by Full Tilt pro David Singer. With Andrew Robl, online player Good2cu, already out all Singer had to do was muck his A10os to collect at least $22k. Instead Singer pushed all in and was called by pocket jacks. Exit Singer with just $11k, a refund of his buy in (plus loose change for the buffet.)
I am not sure if Robl ever returned to pick up his $11k but next time he plays with Singer he should greet him with "Good2cu."
31/03/08
