2012 World Series of Poker

The 2012 World Series of Poker kicked things into high gear on Tuesday with the start of two new events. One was the highly anticipated Event #3 $3,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha, while the other was Event #4 $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8-or Better. Regarding the latter, 622 players turned out in force and created an $839,700 prize pool, $201,559 of which was reserved for first place.

The story of the day was the influx of pros for the first Stud event of this year’s series. A throng of pros flooded into the Amazon Room to take their shot at a gold bracelet, including the defending champ, Chris “PiMaster” Viox; last year’s runner up, Mike Sexton; and former Main Event winners Phil Hellmuth, Carlos Mortensen, Jonathan Duhamel and Scotty Nguyen.

Both Viox and Sexton were still in contention at the end of the day with 11,200 and 22,400 respectively, while all the former champs except for Nguyen were culled, though he is short stacked with 4,100. Some other notables among the 198 Day 1 survivors were Phil Ivey (10,400), Chau Giang (23,400), Barry Greenstein (5,900), Tom Schneider (19,000), Chris Tryba (24,200) and Michael Mizrachi, who emerged as one of the chip leaders with 41,500.

“The Grinder” got part of his stack against Owais Ahmed late in the evening when we caught up with the action on fourth street, which went check-check.

Mizrachi: (x-x) / / (x)
Ahmed: (x-x) / / (x)

Ahmed then bet his lead on fifth, Mizrachi raised, and Ahmed paused to consider his options. He was getting short on chips but splashed the extra bet into the pot nonetheless, leaving himself just 2,200 chips. Mizrachi proceeded to bet sixth and seventh streets, and Ahmed paid him off on each.

Mizrachi tabled / and Ahmed simply mucked, leaving himself just 600 chips. Surprisingly, Ahmed would mount a comeback and finish the night with 15,500.

Unfortunately not everyone was so fortunate as Mizrachi and Ahmed. Among the day’s casualties were Jeff Lisandro, Shaun Deeb, Joe Serock, Allen Cunningham, Daniel Negreanu, Eugene Katchalov, Matt Glantz, Erik Seidel, Chad Brown, Norman Chad, David “Doc” Sands, Dan Kelly, David Benyamine, Jennifer Harman, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Shawn Buchanan.

While eliminations were abundant, a handful of players managed to thrive. Here’s a look at some notable end-of-Day 1 stacks:

Notable Chip Counts

Day 2 action is set to begin at 2 p.m. PST as the field will play ten levels, move past the money bubble and get as close to the final table as possible. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to capture all the action and deliver it straight to you.

After Tony Ma had bet sixth street and an unknown player in Seat 4 called, Bertrand "ElkY" Grosspellier moved all in for just 100 more. Both his opponents made the call and it was off to seventh street.

Grosspellier: (x-x) / (x) / (x)
Ma: /
Seat 4 : (x-x) / / (x)

Ma bet seventh and received a call from Seat 4, but the latter simply mucked when the former turned over his cards. Grospellier did the same and his tournament came to an end minutes shy of Day 1's end.

David Plasitk got himself all in on fifth street in a three-way pot against Frank Kassela and another opponent.

Plastik: (x-x) / / (x)
Kassela: (x-x) / / (x)
Opponent: (x-x) / / (x)

The fifth street action began with Mr. Opponent betting his lead, and Plastik called all in. Kassela raised, and the opponent called the remainder. When Plastik received his sixth card, he stood up and began to gather his things. In the side action, Mr. Opponent called two more streets of bets from Kassela.

At showdown, Kassela revealed / and announced his "Nines up." It was good, and Plastik gave a long over-the-shoulder look back at the table as he hurried out of the Amazon Room with some visible frustration.

The tournament staff has just announced that the remaining players, or which there are approximately 210, will play four more hands before calling it a night.

Owais Ahmed has made a remarkable comeback. After being left with just 600 in a hand with Michael Mizrachi not that long ago, Ahmed has rebuilt and is now sitting with an above-average stack of 16,000.

Meanwhile, Gavin Smith and Chino Rheem has been eliminated from the tournament.

Pacing slowly toward the exit doors with your head down while everyone else is still playing is not a good sign. In fact, it's universal poker bloggers' code for busto. The last man we've seen take that walk of shame is Mark Gregorich. He's a mixed-game master who finished 3rd in a Stud/8 event in 2000, but his run here in Event #4 is over.