Daily Rewind: One Drop Begins, Selbst's WSOP Win & Big Folds for $18 million

In today's Daily Rewind we bring you news from the One Drop event, applaud Vanessa Selbst's latest tournament victory and debate the merits of folding quads with Mikhail Smirnov.

The Daily Rewind is your one-stop-shop for a sharp review of the day in poker. Join us here for a mix of the latest news and a more irreverent insight into the poker world. Today we discovered the following topics for you:

One Drop Finally Drops

Deeb takes a million

Under the sound of Cirque du Soleil’s drummers, the 48 One Drop participants entered the WSOP arena earlier today in search of the $18,346,673 first place prize.

With a mixture of world-class pros and business moguls in attendance, many expected the early eliminations to consist of the latter.

However, the reality of the situation couldn’t have been more different with only two of the 11 eliminations being non-professionals.

Justin “Boosted J” Smith was the first player to hit the rail and he was quickly followed by Andrew Robl who fell at the hands of Brian “tsarrast” Rast.

At the close of Day 1 it was Rast who sat atop of the chip counts with over 10 million, just ahead of Phil Hellmuth (8.3 million) and amateur Frederic Banjout (7 million).

One player who didn’t get to contest the event – although we’re sure he’s not too upset – was Shaun Deeb.

The American pro earned himself an alternate seat thanks to a $25,000 satellite and because there were no last minute drop outs he was able to swap his seat for cash.

One Drop bling

Selbst is the Best

You know you’ve done your bit for gender equality in poker when the WSOP’s Matt Savage proclaims you as “one of the best tournament players in the world”, rather than one of the best "female" players in the world.

With over $5 million in tournament earnings over the last six years, there’s little doubt that Vanessa Selbst is the best players to play the game.

Indeed, aside from the $244,259 she banked for winning Event #52 at this year’s WSOP, she has become the first woman to claim a bracelet in an open event since 2008 - the last person to achieve that feat was: Vanessa Selbst.
 

Selbst wins another

Genius or Fool?

Strange betting lines and obvious tells make the amateurs in the One Drop event virtually dead money compared to the game’s elite. However, that might not be entirely true when it comes to Russian amateur Mikhail Smirnov.

After making a river bet with quad eights on a board, Smirnov was surprised to see his opponent, John Morgan, move all-in for 3.4 million.

It took the Russian just a moment’s thought before he folded his hand face-up. While the table sat frozen in shock at the fold, a confident Smirnov said: “for me, it was a very easy fold.”

Having reasoned that his opponent must have had a straight flush to make that move, Smirnov seemed content with his decision.

After the hand Tom “Durrrr” Dwan left the table in disbelief while Phil Galfond said: “I’ve never seen a fold like that”.

Whether it was a genius move or a major mistake only Morgan knows, but it just goes to show that even the amateurs can make big moves at the table. 

High Stakes Corner

Dwan's delight

The action in Vegas seems to be building up nicely with further reports from the $2,000/$4,000 game.

Amongst the discussions on 2+2 it seems that Tom “Durrrr” Dwan is currently up five buy-ins ($5 million), which means he is currently making more than the third place finisher in the One Drop event.

The full list of players still hasn’t been reported, but it seems that "Viffer" is a staple player in the game along with Dwan.

A young British player has also been mentioned several times, as has Australian Matt Kirk.

Daily Signoff

It might not be as exciting as two fighters entering the ring, but the WSOP did their best to give the One Drop event as much of an exciting build-up as possible. (Watch for the slip-up in the pronunciation of Guy’s name.)