Event 30 : A Very Fast-Paced PLO Tournament

The $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha event attracted a total of 436 players, including many notable names such as Barry Greenstein, Gavin Griffin, J.C. Tran, Erick Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth, David Benyamine and last year's winner Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond.

Two Team PokerStrategy.com members were also seen at the tables, namely Nazgul and Trader. This was the first WSOP event with both of them in it and unfortunately, they shared the same fate of leaving the tournament on the first play day.

Nazgul was busted early on in a hand against Mike Sexton. Before making the call, Sexton said, "Anyway, I call you, I have the H.O.R.S.E. event starting soon." "And he busted me!", joked Nazgul.
Meanwhile, Trader (pictured left) had a bit more interesting day. This was his first WSOP event he attended this year and while it didn't exactly go well, it was a promising start which gives us a hint that he will surely fare better in the upcoming tournaments.

His table was quite solid, with the biggest threat being Jason Mercier seated to his left. There wasn't much limping around and there were a lot of re-raises pre-flop. Trader's stack first went up from the starting 7,500 to 10,000 and then it began to crumble.

His stack took the first major blow in a hand where he flopped a flush with T-8-8-6 on a Q-J-5 board. There were two more players in that hand and they both checked to Trader. He led out for 1,000 into a 1,300 pot and one player moved all-in for 2,6000. That player was just moved to the table, so Trader eventually decided to make the call only to see his opponent turn over K-3-X-X for a better flush. Trader missed his one out to the straight flush and had to hand over the pot to his opponent.

The next hand was much more devastating, as Trader lost a big chunk of his stack. He three-bet with A-A-9-9 against two players and the flop came and Trader had the , so he decided to make a continuation bet, one player called and the other immediately shoved a re-raise back to Trader and he had to lay it down.

Being left with roughly 4,000, Trader was then dealt T-9-6-7 double suited and decided to three-bet an early semi-loose raiser. The other players folded away and the original raiser re-raised. Trader called and saw he was up against A-A-Q-5 nonsuited. Poker Gods decided Trader was not going to win this one and he was out.

As it is with all the PLO events, this one also had the rebuy option - all players were given two red buttons and if they lost their starting stacks or wanted to add more chips to their stacks, they simply had to hand in one of these red buttons and new chips would just appear right away.

When you have such a liberty to gamble with your entire stack, some players naturally shoved in more often and hoped to double up early on - if it failed, they  could simply rebuy for a new stack and start all over again. Sammy Farha was one of such players and  he was also one of those who managed to lose the starting stack early on.

The board read and Farha got all of his chips in the middle with for top two pair. His opponent called with . The turn brought and gave a better two pair to Farha's opponent. The river card changed nothing and Farha had to rebuy.

Even though he lost his first stack, Farha made up for it with his newly bought stack. On a flop of , Farha and his opponent got their chips in. Farha showed and his opponent turned over . Farha hit a flush when the board revealed . With this hand won, Farha climbed up to 18,7000 in chips and still had one red button left in case he needs it.

Farha's momentum didn't last for long and eventually, he was sent to the rail. Being in a gambling spirit he often is, Farha survived for quite a while compared to some other pros who made early departures, namely Greg Raymer, Gavin Griffin and Michael Mizrachi.
The easiest way to spot pros is not a shirt covered with sponsors' logos nor anything of that sort, they stick out amongst others mostly because they love to multitable and if possible, make a late arrival. Daniel Negreanu, Robert Mizrachi (pictured right), Max Pescatori, Chau Giang, Men Nguyen, Michael Binger and others showed up after the play was already under way and many participants had already left the tournament.

One of such late arrivals was Phil Ivey, though he had a good excuse - winning Event #25.Phil Hellmuth noticed Ivey taking his seat at a nearby table and went to congratulate him, commenting, "Aren't you setting the bar a little high kid?"

By the end of the day, Phil Hellmuth, David Uliott, Chau Giang and many more were sent to the rail. Phil Ivey took a blow in the last stages of play but he managed to cling on to his short stack and will return for Day 2. With a short stack or any stack for that matter, Ivey is certainly a threat that nobody can overlook.

Only 63 players remain in the race for the title with J.C. Tran holding the chip lead, followed by Jesse Rios and some notable names, such as Theo Jorgensen who apparently decided not to start a boxing career after his successful match against Gus Hansen.