The 2012 WSOP is creeping ever closer towards the finish line but that didn’t stop Day 38 from being one of the most compelling, bizarre days yet.
A great deal of the excitement actually came from outside the Rio as fallout from the BIG ONE and insane cash games dominated the poker news world.
Today in the WSOP 3-Bet we take a look at the startling alleged attack on Sam Trickett, one of the biggest cash games ever played and a near miss for Peter Eastgate.
As always feel free to hit up our comments section to make suggestions for future WSOP 3-Bet pieces.
1) Big Game at Aria Goes Off
The poker world was blowing up on Twitter today as Dan Bilzerian posted this absolutely insane shot of a rack of $9.4 million in $100k chips at Aria.
First thought: Aria has $100k chips? Second thought: Who in the world is bankrolled to play that game?
The rumor was that Aria was spreading a $5,000/$10,000 game with a minimum buy-in of $1 million. If true that would make it one of the biggest cash games ever held.
We headed over to Aria a couple hours after the Tweet to check the game out and it appeared Bilzerian was playing against Bobby Baldwin, Guy Laliberte and one other unidentified player.
The board listed $800/$1,600 Mixed as the highest game running at that point, however.
2) Near Miss for Eastgate in $1,500 Final Table
2008 WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate nearly added his second career WSOP bracelet at the final table of Event 56 $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em today.
Eastgate entered the final table as the short stack but didn’t go away quietly as he won several pivotal double ups and was in the hunt for a bracelet right up until the moment he lost a coinflip to bust in fourth place.
The Dane picked up $209,111 for his efforts in the contest, which is pretty impressive considering he’s only played a handful of events here at the 2012 WSOP.
In our minds Eastgate has always been an underrated Main Event champ as he’s actually gone on to win nearly $2 million since claiming his big title in 2008.
That period of time also included his brief “retirement” from poker so he’s established a tremendous ROI in tournaments over the last few years.
3) Trickett Allegedly Beaten by Six Assailants
Sam Trickett won $10 million for finishing second to Antonio Esfandiari in the $1 million buy-in WSOP BIG ONE for ONE DROP yesterday.
That was good.
The rest of his night, however, didn’t go quite as well as he Tweeted today that he was attacked by six guys and woke up looking a little worse for wear.
Trickett’s girlfriend Natasha (@NatashaSandhu) Sandhu later clarified that it wasn’t a mugging and implied the incident occurred because of an argument.
The alleged attack took place as the pair were leaving a club.
It’s still unclear if the attackers were from the poker world or complete strangers.
An understandably upset Trickett later Tweeted:
Is this what happens if ur successful? literally beat the shit out of me and spat in @NatashaSandhu face all over nothing...— Sam Trickett (@Samtrickett1) July 5, 2012
It’s not the first time a poker pro has been assaulted after making a huge score. Jason Mercier was stabbed in an Italian club after winning EPT San Remo for $1.3 million in 2008.
Mercier even offered his condolences to the biggest winner in U.K. poker history:
.@Samtrickett1 been there before brother.Sorry to hear that happened #justbadluckobv— Jason Mercier (@JasonMercier) July 5, 2012
For all the action from the WSOP in Las Vegas click through to our 2012 World Series of Poker Live Coverage section, brought to you by 888poker.com.
