WSOP Event #57: Allanon Joins The Field On Day 1D

With a total of four preliminary days, WSOP Main Event has finally reached the last one, Day 1D. Our very own TeamPokerStrategy.com player Allanon was at its start. He was supposed to start on the first day, but he caught the Vegas flu (not the Mexican) and had to stay in bed on that day. Luckily he recovered quickly enough to join in on the action on Day 1D.

The day started in a quite bizarre manner with swarms of players hoping to catch a seat in the Main Event but in the end, only 2,809 of them were able to play on Day 1D with likes of Patrik Antonius left on the rail to watch the show. Due to the space and dealer capacity limitations, many were left out but the field was still big enough to make the total number of entrants for this year's WSOP Main Event reach 6,494, thus creating a whooping $8,546,435 first place prize.

Allanon wasn't the only player from PokerStrategy.com that joined the field today. Alongside him were: bagger0405, fabstinho, and  vipa. They were accompanied by famous players such as: Daniel Alaei, Josh Arieh, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, David Benyamine, Cliff Josephy, Phil Ivey and many more. Bertrand was particularly successful, ending the day close to the top of the leaderboard.

Allanon (pictured left) started his day well, quickly accumulating a bunch of chips and managed to double his stack. Quite early in the second level of play, Allanon picked up . He raised it from an early position to 900, with the blinds 150-300. He got three callers, one from middle position, one from the button and one from the small blind. The pot was a little less than 4,000 when the flop came . The small blind checked to Allanon and he made a continuation bet of 2,800. Both middle position and the button folded and the small blind made the call. The turn completed the flush draw with a . Small blind once again checked to Allanon and he bet 5,500. Small blind called. River and it was again checked to Allanon who pushed all-in for 12,000. The small blind called quickly and showed . Allanon doubled through.

In the last Level of play for the day, the blinds were 200-400 with 50 antes. Allanon had about 70,000 in chips and had to deal with some crazy action going on at this table. First UTG raised pre-flop to 1,100. He got re-raised by UTG+1 who made it 3,200 to go. UTG+2 decides to call the 3,200. Allanon woke up in the hijack with the absolute nuts, pocket rockets, . He didn't like the 3,200 raise that much and decided to bump it a little more up to 9,400. It was folded around to UTG+1 who went in the tank for a short moment and then decided to push his 30,000 stack in. UTG+2 didn't want to flat again and decided to get away from all this action. After Allanon made the call UTG+1 showed the hand that goes for a classic set up, . At this point UTG+2 announced that he folded AK, so there was only one King left in the deck. The flop, however, managed to spike that case card when it came down: . With no further help on the turn or river for Allanon, he suffered a big blow to his stack.

After winning back a couple of small hands before the day ended, Allanon was left with 51,075 in chips which will still give him a solid stack to start with on Day 2.

vipa and fabstinho (pictured right) both ended their first day very well. They have 83,000 and 102,000 in chips respectively.

Vipa didn't get a flying start though. He was forced to fold a big hand early on in the day. With the Level 1 still runing and blinds at 50-100, UTG raised it up to 300. UTG+1 called it and vipa over-called in middle position, they were joined by both blinds that also made the call. With five players in the hand, the action moved to the flop of , vipa must have liked his when it was checked around to him. He bet 1,100 into a 1,500 pot and only the small blind was courageous enough to stay in the hand by calling. The turn was a , small blind checked and vipa bet 2,500, small blind calls. River , small blind checked, vipa bet 6,000 and the small blind re-raised him to 12,000.

Vipa said: "I think he almost never bluffs here, so I have to make a tough fold."  And he was down to 15,000.

A couple of hands later, vipa managed to double through by hitting a set of eights on an A-K-8 board and getting action from A-Q. Then a nice hand came along against the same player against whom vipa just managed to double through. Villain opened in the small blind to 600 with blinds 100-200. Vipa raised it up to 1,800 with from the big blind and got a call. Flop came . Small blind checked it and vipa bet 2,000, small blind called. Turn brought the and once again the small blind checked, vipa checked it back. River was a blank and once more the small blind checked it. Vipa decided to make a value bet of 4,000 and the small blind shipped his chips in for a total of 15,000. Vipa didn't give the raise much credit and called it with just a pair of eights. Small blind tried to muck his hands, but the new World Series of Poker rules don't allow it and he had to show his hand, . After some more hands vipa found himself with 83,000 that will await him on Day 2.

fabstinho started the day on a table with only eight players during the first Level because of a mix up by the organisation. Fabstinho was feeling comfortable at his table and could play many hands in position. One interesting hand occurred during the third Level when the blinds were 150-300 with a 25 ante. A somewhat tight player limped UTG+1 and Fabstinho decided to make an isolation raise with A-7o to 1,200. Everyone except the original limper went out and they went heads-up to the flop. A rainbow came and the UTG+1 checked it to Fabstinho who bet out 2,000 into the pot. UTG+1 went over the top by going all-in for 15,000 total and sending Fabstinho into tanking mode. After a while, he got all his thoughts straight and decided his hand is good enough against the range of that typical player and made the call. UTG+1 turned over for two overs, a gutshot and a backdoor flush draw. He didn't get any of them and Fabstinho scooped a nice pot.

At one point Fabstinho managed to get a 120,000 stack. After Fabstinho sent one of his opponents packing, a young player joined the table and Fabstinho lost some of his big stack to him.

With the blinds still 150-300 and 25 ante, Fabstinho opened to somewhere close to 900. The young player calls from the cut-off and they went to the flop together. gave Fabstinho a Royal Gutshot and he made a continuation bet of about two thirds of the pot. The young player called and the turn brought a , Fabstinho again bet two thirds of the pot and once again got called. The river was a and Fabstinho decided to bluff the river as he didn't think he had any showdown value. He bet again two thirds of the pot and the young player called with A-To. Despite losing a chunk of his stack to that player, Fabstinho doesn't have to worry much, as he will enter Day 2 with over 100,000 in chips.

bagger0405 who has done so well during these series, by cashing already four times, had a much tougher time today. Unfortunately he didn't manage to increase his stack on Day 1D, and will be going to Day 2 with a stack of only 18,000. However, he is far from out, as he has well over thirty big blinds to play with on Day 2.

Here are the top 10 chip stacks after Day 1D:

World Series Of Poker Event #57 Day 1D Standings
Rank	Name	Chips
1st	Troy Weber	353,000
2nd	Tyson Marks	196,500
3rd	Stephen Costello	192,000
4th	Mads Wissing	185,750
5th	Joseph Sanders	175,800
6th	Mikael Ay	173,900
7th	Carter King	170,000
8th	Mark Weil	168,575
9th	Paul Wolfe	163,000
10th	Alessandro Pastura	160,900