2008 WSOP Day 36 Recap

Saturday, Jul. 5, 2008

2008 WSOP Day 36 Recap

By Chris Hall | WSOP

After the excitement of opening day, the number of runners dipped for Day 1b of the Main Event, no doubt due to aftereffects of the July 4th celebrations.

Whether this will help or hinder the event over the weekend, however, remains to be seen.

After 1,297 players turned up yesterday, reporters kept a keen eye on the total number of players, which at the moment is unofficially around the 5,500 mark. The Main Event, though, will need two days of 2,000 players or more though if it is to surpass last year's mark of 6,358 players, which itself was down on the previous year.

Last year's champion - a person who's been as difficult to find over the last 12 months as Waldo or Carmen Sandiego - Jerry Yang announced the famous words, "Shuffle up and deal" to great applause from the crowds of watching people who were as likely here sheltering from the 110-degree temperatures outside as they were for the poker.

Jamie Gold was among those playing today. He received an early boost when his table played for a period of time during the first level with blinds at $25/$50, as opposed to every other table in the tournament where they were $50/$100.

Ted Forrest was the earliest pro to exit; he got all-in with deuces on a A Q 2 board against K J, only to see his opponent to catch the T on the turn, with Forrest unable to house up on the river.

Patrik Antonius

Daniel Negreanu was another player who left early, falling to the set-over-set curse that claims so many players. No doubt it was equally disappointing for many of the public on the rail who had come to see people like himself and Patrik Antonius see if they could catch themselves a few fish.

Speaking of the latter, he was incredibly dominant at his table all day and quickly managed to amass himself an $80,000 stack fairly early on before losing a healthy chunk of it later on in the day. He'd flopped a set of deuces only to run into a flopped set of kings with all the money getting in the middle by the river. Unlike Negreanu and Forrest though, he managed to make it through to Day 2.

Erick Lindgren celebrated his winning of the Player of the Year title by having a very solid day on the feature TV table, while Robert Mizrachi did even better, finishing fourth in chips with $131,000, but behind the chip leader Ben Sarnoff who had $165,000.

Another player who perhaps slipped quietly underneath the radar of many of the railers was Canadian Marc Karam.

Last year's EPT Monte Carlo runner-up finished with $113,000, having made a number of excellent calls and plays, including one big sweat where he called off half his stack with J J against A 7 on a 6 4 3 board and managed to avoid all 15 outs twice.

It was especially sweet since Karam had dropped about half his stack in the opening half hour and had no doubt been thinking it probably wasn't going to be his day.

By Main Event standards, this was a relatively quiet day. Saturday and Sunday are expected to be much more action-packed, though, with an estimated 4,000 players still to come through the doors, including Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth and the legend himself, Doyle Brunson. PokerListings will be there with all the action all the way to the wire, so make sure you join us!