WSOPE ..............

WSOPE Main Event is taking place this week in London and from 362 entries, who all coughed up the £10,000 buy in, we are down to just 24 players and what an event this is turning into, with the cream continuing to rise to the top. Over half the remaining field could be considered big names in the poker world, the sponsors must be delighted and Vegas envious.

This tournament has it all, huge names in Juanda, Negreanu, Matusow and Seidel, known to even casual observers of the sport. The usual handful of Scandinavians, Russians (more about them later) , a couple of "old timers" (no names) and some internet superstars, including Justin "BoostedJ"Smith and Brian "sbrugby" Townsend, who has recently taken a frightful hammering at the online Omaha tables. Johnny Lodden is "back" after falling on very hard times, we have all been there and I wish him well !

All are guaranteed a £28,960 pay day, but that is small fry and most will only have eyes on the first prize of over £868k, even two double ups for the shortstacks will take them to "midtable", so no one is really out of this yet.

I have to finish with a word about Russian player Ivan Demidov, incredible he has already booked a place in the WSOP final table, taking place in Las Vegas in November, which guarantees him $900k, but second in chips there, he will have much bigger dreams. The 27 yo Moscovite obviously has the knack of playing these events and another final table looks on the cards and what a double that would be !

Juanda, John chips 657,500 table 2 seat 6
Negreanu, Daniel 653,000 1 2
Smith, Justin 624,500 1 4
Rouas, Phillippe 573,000 1 8
Lodden, Johnny 478,000 3 6
Townsend, Brian 424,500 3 8
Sonnert, Ben 346,500 1 9
Hiltunen, Toni 321,500 2 2
Kongsgaard, Soren 316,500 3 1
Demidov, Ivan 316,000 3 9
Bloch, Andy 301,000 2 8
Fischman, Scott 298,000 3 7
Bergius, Perttu 261,000 1 1
Judah, Mel 254,000 2 1
Shakerchi, Talal 225,000 1 3
Alekhin, Stanislav 215,000 1 5
Neff, Peter 213,500 2 7
Adams, Brandon 212,000 3 2
Elliott, Christopher 181,500 3 3
Matusow, Mike 147,500 1 6
Seidel, Eric 85,000 3 5
Torsvik, Kim-Andre 78,500 2 3
Keston, Robin 74,000 2 4
West, Tim 63,500 2 5

Back Later.