WSOP Updates

Action has been fast and furious over at the Rio these past few days. It's been near impossible to keep up with all the players that have been knocked out. Again---I'll pimp Pauly's site--to get the best blow-by-blow coverage of the event, check out http://taopoker.blogspot.com

So, lets revisit my predictions of a few days ago:

#1--that horse already came through. Despite his big chip stack early on, Sammy Farha was knocked out relatively early.

#2--Nothing is a sure bet right now, but with the chip stacks that both Ivey and Raymer have right now, they look like they are in very good position to bring this prediction home. (see chip counts below for beginning of play today--3pm).

#3--So far I'm pretty close here. The only pro besides Ivey and Raymer in the top 10 is Mike the Mouth Matusow. This pains me. I'm not the biggest fan of The Mouth---and frankly, I hope Raymer pulls a 3 outer on him and sends him home. I'd imagine that ESPN is pulling for an Ivey/Raymer/Matusow final table---but I can do without. All said, though, this prediction is still pretty on target...very few pros to be at the final table.

1. Mike Matusow (Las Vegas, NV) $5.14M
2. Phil Ivey (Las Vegas, NV) $4.635M
3. Steven Dannenmann (Severn, MD) $4.3M
4. Tex Barch (McKinney, TX) $3.9M
5. Greg "Fossil Man" Raymer (Stonington, CT) $3.84M
6. Brad Koudrachi (Kingston, PA) $3.16M
7. Joseph Hachem (Melbourne, Australia $3.125M
8. Scott Lazar (Studio City, CA) $3.025M
9. Michael Kessler (Spotsylvania, VA) $2.7M
10. Daniel Bergsdorf (Umea, Sweden) $2.55M

A few other reactions to the play of the last few days:

**Kudos to Tiffany Williamson, the lone remaining female in the field. She starts the day with $1.125M in chips, but this could have been much worse. She made a poor call on Raymer yesterday, when he went all-in pre-flop. She had him covered, pondered her move for a few minutes, and called his KK with A-J. Tough thing about it is that if she had spiked an A, history would be looking a little more differently on her today. She had a legitimate chance to knock out the current world champion, and she took a stab at it. Good for her for having the guts to do it---but hindsight shows that the call wasn't the right one. If it weren't for doubling up soon after her loss to Raymer, she may not have lasted until today, and she certainly would have been a short stack at best.

**With Raymer's run this year, all the critics are coming out of the ductwork. Many criticize his play, and attribute his winning to a great deal of luck. (You can see all the haters on Pauly's comments sections) I like to look at it this simply: Luck is certainly involved everywhere in this game---there are few 100% situations. However, Raymer has played the hands in front of him, avoided any elimination chances, and gotten the job done---in back to back record fields! You can attribute as much of his success to luck as you like, but I consider it no coincidence that he, Ivey and Matusow are still left with good chip stacks----they are PROS, and have SKILLS.

All for now, I'm sure to be back with some updates based on today's play, taking the field from 27 to the final table of 9----EVERYONE at the final table guaranteed a pay day of at least $1M!