WSOP Event #39: The Bubble Doesn't Quite Burst

With the 39th tournament of the WSOP, yet another No Limit Hold'em Event started today. The buy-in of $1,500 lured a total of 2,717 players to the tables, including of course the usual suspects. Amongst them, PokerStrategist jonathanlittle was making another appearance - you can follow his WSOP experience on his blog.

A strong Al Barbieri was out front with 45,000 chips, while the likes of Allen Kessler and Mimi Tran already dropped below the starting stack size. David Pham was amongst the first to be eliminated when he called a re-raise all-in with his pocket deuces, but couldn't improve against Todd Terry's pocket fours.

Will Mitchell was another one to go early, but this time, it was one of the usual bad beat stories - apparently, he had his AA cracked by TT. Meanwhile, Justin Bonomo was dominating his table with 30,000 in chips. In a notable hand, he defended his big blind with and both players checked the board of . The opponent then reluctantly called Bonomo's big bet only to muck to the rivered flush.

As the play got closer to the end of day one, more players had to make their way out of the tournament and into the spectator area. The big names were no exception, with Theo Tran, J.C. Tran (pictured left) and Nam Le going to the rails early. Brandon Cantu, Shannon Shorr, Mike Sowers and Mike Caro were also getting closer to danger as they hovered through the tournament below average.

Eddy Sabat had to take his leave when his AK didn't hold up against the opponent's AQ as the queen hit on the river. It was the same hand that eliminated Matt Stout from the tournament when he couldn't catch with his T8. Alexandre Gomes however couldn't follow up when his AQ couldn't beat the opposing JJ - the queen came on the river again,  but with the board reading T598Q, it also gave his opponent the winning straight.

Tomorrow, around 333 players will return to fight it out for the money, with 270 places being paid for in the total prize pool of $3,705,974. Dutch Boyd, who was leading the field for quite a while, won't be coming back, though, as he kept losing all-ins against smaller stacks and was finally eliminated. The top ten for day two all sit comfortably at over 100,000 in chips and we can look forward to a close race for the top spots.