Yorky Pud

Earlier today 18 of the world's best tournament poker players returned to their seats at the Palms Resort Casino knowing they had won at least $43,190 in the inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event. Each of these 18 players knew that if they survived until the end of play they would then have locked up $107,980 and have a realistic shot at the $1,000,000 first place prize.

One man who maybe did not have such high hopes was Justin Bonomo who started the day with just 42,000 and on a table that had a legitimate claim to being the ultimate “Table of Doom.” Bonomo was seated with Hasan Habib, Eugene Katchalov, Sam Trickett, Jason Mercier and Erik Seidel who between them had more than $41,000,000 in live tournament winnings, 12 World Series of Poker bracelets, two European Poker Tour titles and a World Poker Tour title.

Bonomo managed to double up on the very first hand when he got his stack in with QsJd against Habib's Ah9h on a flop reading Js-2h-8c and then he doubled again on the very next hand when he entered a raising war with Trickett and found himself all in with AdJs against the Brit's pocket fours. Bonomo spiked an ace on the flop, which stayed ahead, to put himself well over 200,000 chips! Any hopes of an epic comeback were soon dashed though as Bonomo made it 13,000 to play and then jammed for more than 200,000 when Mercier three-bet to 37,000. Mercier called with AcKs and was in a coinflip scenario against Bonomo's 7c7d. The Js-8c-2c flop kept Bonomo in front but the Kh on the turn left him drawing to just two outs, neither of which appeared on the turn and Bonomo was the first casualty of the day.

Over the next few hours there were a steady stream of eliminations including Matt Glantz, Noah Schwartz and Trickett, the latter never getting going all day and judging from his tweets throughout the day he was being dealt trash hand after trash hand and generally running badly. He eventually busted out in 11th place when his pocket sevens ran into the pocket nines of Chino Rheem and could not improve.

When Katchalov was sent to the rail in eighth place, the remaining players were all seated together on an unofficial seven-handed final table. It was announced that play would continue until one more player was busted out and the final table was set, something that took four and a quarter hours to occur! The unfortunate final table bubble boy was Adam “Roothlus” Levy who was sent packing in unfortunate circumstances, again at the hands of Rheem. With blinds at 8,000/16,000/2,000a Rheem opened the betting with a raise to 40,000 and Levy, next to act, three-bet all in for around 400,000. When the action folded to Rheem he snap-called and turned over pocket kings, way in front of the queens held by Levy. But, the queens were catapulted into the lead as the flop came down As-Qs-Ac to give Levy an unlikely full house. The 9s on the turn failed to alter anything but the Ad on the river meant Rheem had improved to a better full house and Levy's and the latter was sent to the cashier's cage to pick up seventh place's prize money, $70,960.

When play resumes at 1400 local time it will be Habib who leads the way with a stack of 1,655,000 and he will go into battle against Erik Seidel (1,109,000), Rheem (1,432,000), Gavin Smith (766,000), Mercier (1,495,000) and Huck Seed (396,000) the latter is essentially freerolling after winning close to $700,000 on a video poker game last week! It is actually quite difficult to pick a winner out of these six players with Habib being vastly experienced in prestigious, high buy-in tournaments, Seidel being in the form of his life and Mercier being Mericer. This humble reporter believes it will be one of the three aforementioned players and if he had to stick his neck on the line would opt for Mercier to take it after defeating Seidel heads up. You read it here first!

Final table seat draw and chip counts

Seat 1: Hasan Habib: 1,655,000 chips
Seat 2: Erik Seidel: 1,109,000
Seat 3: Chino Rheem: 1,432,000
Seat 4: Gavin Smith: 766,000
Seat 5: Jason Mercier: 1,495,000
Seat 6: Huck Seed: 396,000