WSOP 40k Buy In
Today was the first day of the much anticipated 40k buy in at the 2009 World Series of Poker. There were many questions as to who would show up and how many players would be able to afford the steep buy in. Even in the time of a recession, there were over 200 players who registered for the event. It was no surprise that this tournament would be attended by high profile players like Phil Hellmuth, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Annie Duke, and Johnny Chan (just to name a few). It was a surprise that there were lesser known players that decided to take their stab at this event as well. This proves that there is a market for people that are willing to pay the high price tag for the chance to play an exclusive event with the world’s top pros.
There were several tough tables of world champions sitting together sharing stories, chips, and knockouts. One table featured Phil Ivey, Scotty Nguyen, David “The Dragon” Pham, Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth, and a few other pros. On a few occasions Ivey was able to detect weak bets from other players and by coming over the top he got them to lay down their cards. In true Mike “The Mouth” fashion, Matusow was ranting about Peter Eastgate’s fold on High Stakes Poker with trip threes. Even though Mike hasn’t played many hands, he is still holding steady on his chips. Justin Bonomo is continuing his sick run this year, and has over 500k in chips while the average is 170k. Other noteworthy players like Howard Leaderer, Johnny Chan, Barry Greenstein, and Chris Ferguson have been eliminated and will have to wait until next year to see if they have a chance to claim the title for this historic event.
WSOP Commissioner Jeffery Pollack seemed to be pretty happy with the amount of players that attended this event which means that a similar event might be added as a permanent fixture to the WSOP schedule.
