Pham is one of a number of big names in Round 3 of the Shootout

There was plenty of action at the tables on Thursday at the 2011 World Series of Poker, including two final tables, two new bracelet winners, and the second day of play in the star-studded $1,500 Shootout event.

Despite all the poker action, it was drama away from the tables that stole the spotlight as the marked card controversy that first surfaced at the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em final table once again reared its ugly head in a game that is perhaps most affected by the defect–No Limit 2-7 Single Draw.

Card Controversy Resurfaces

Though the card controversy began in the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em event, the repercussions of the discovery that players could still see the printing defect on the deuce, trey, four, and five of spades ended up resulting in some shuffling and scrambling in the Championship event.

The controversy over the cards resurfaced during the waning levels of the opening day of the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em event. Steve O’Dwyer was one of the first to notice the problem and soon several players were Tweeting about the issue, including Ali Eslami, who wrote:

@indigoae: #WSOP cards are marked! There’s a minor printing error on the BACK of small spades. Do those cards matter in the NL 2-7 main on now?

Eslami and the other players showed the floor staff they were able to recognize the cards and, while some of them had trouble picking out the marked cards every time, eventually the tournament switched entirely to the black decks, where the defect is more difficult to see than on the red decks.

While play continued with the black decks in the $1,500 PL Hold’em, the tournament staff elected to swap the decks in the 2-7 event, as those cards play an integral role in the game. One player lobbying especially hard for the change was someone who wasn’t even in the tournament—Eslami.

As Eslami tells it, he blinded off in his own event for thirty minutes and went over to the 2-7 area to warn his friends in the event and show the floor people how seriously the defect could affect the action.

“I had a lot of chips and sat out and blinded off and went over and told everybody,” Eslami recalled to BLUFF. “As a result of that, the floor pulled out the cards and did a test with me. He said, ‘pick them out for me,’ and I did successfully on the red deck and then he looked at the black deck and saw it on the black deck as well, so they switched to the 2010 cards.”

Tournament staffers said that the still had a dozen or so set-ups from last year, so they were able to switch the cards instantly. How the card situation will be handled when play resumes Saturday remains unclear. In 2007, all of the decks had to be replaced when the Poker Peek design caused an uproar amongst players, who were unable to easily read their holdings.

The cards were replaced within a day or so and WSOP staffers told BLUFF that the US Playing Card Company (USPC) could feasibly reprint the more than 10,000 decks needed for the WSOP in the span of a day or two.

$10,000 No Limit 2-7 Single Draw Championship

The No Limit 2-7 Championship managed to continue on in the face of the card controversy and end the day with 88 of the 126 runners still alive in the event. In a field stacked with pros, it was the relative unknown 2-7 specialist Vince Musso who ended the day on top with 106,200 chips. Shaun Deeb is hot on his heels with 104,000. The two appear to be the only players above the century mark. Layne Flack, Justin Smith, Justin Bonomo, Galen Hall, and Carlos Mortensen were just some of the Day 1 casualties.

Here is a look at the unofficial top five in chips headed into Day 2. Play is set to resume at 3pm PT on Friday:

1. Vince Musso – 106,200
2. Shaun Deeb – 104,000
3. Nick Schulman – 87,000
4. Joe Cassidy – 85,000
5. Jennifer Harman – 83,700

$1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em

Even though players couldn’t open shove all-in in the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em, that didn’t stop the action from progressing at a brisk pace. By the end of Day 1, only 85 or so of the original 765 players remained and, when play resumes at 2:30pm PT on Friday, players will be just a handful of spots away from the money.

One player likely to exit this event with some sort of payday is chip leader Ronald Lee, who ran his starting stack of 4,500 all the way up to 122,700 by day’s end. Lee appears to be the only player over 100,000 chips. Other notables with big stacks include James Carroll and Christian Harder.

$3,000 Limit Hold’em

It took until well after the dinner break for the field in the $3,000 Limit Hold’em event to burst the 36-person money bubble.  Alex Kravchenko’s departure in 38th place set the stage for hand-for-hand play and John Hoppman’s exit in 37th ensured each of the remaining players would get at $5,612 for their efforts.

“Original” David Baker, Marco Traniello, Hiren Patel, Shawn Buchanan, and Brent Roberts were some of the players who made the money, but failed to survive the day.

Eighteen players will be back at the tables at 3pm PT tomorrow to try and play down to a winner.  Shawn Keller will be in the pole position as he tries to improve upon his third place finish in this same event from back in 2007.  He holds the chip lead with 520,000, followed by Dmitry Gromov with 368,500.  Sorel Mizzi, Victor Ramdin, Jeff Shulman, and Alex Keating are all still alive in the event as well.

Here are the top ten chip counts headed into Day 3 of play:

1. Shawn Keller – 520,000
2. Dmitry Gromov – 368,500
3. Tyler Bonkowski – 289,000
4. Mitch Schock – 289,000
5. Victor Ramdin – 287,000
6. Jeff Shulman – 197,000
7. Ron Burke – 147,000
8. Brandon Demes – 128,000
9. Leo Labbe – 124,500
10. Mark Gryglik – 120,500

$1,500 No Limit Hold’em Shootout

The 160 players who returned for Day 2 of the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Shootout were all guaranteed a payday in exchange for advancing past the first round, but only 16 of them will have a chance at the big money that comes with advancing to the final table. WSOP bracelet winner Dan Kelly was the first through to the finals. While players like Daniel Negreanu, Scott Montgomery, Amit Makhija, and Victor Ramdin failed to win their tables to move on, plenty of others did and the top sixteen is packed with a number of familiar names.

Here are the sixteen players returning for the final round of Shootout play on Friday. The field will be divided into two eight-handed table to begin play. Each player will begin with 450,000 chips and blinds at 3,000/6,000 ante 1,000:

Andrew Badecker
Lars Bonding
Erik Cajelais
Daniel Fischer
Frank Kassela
Dan Kelly
Vitaly Lunkin
Daniel Makowsky
Andrew Pantling
David Pham
David Robinson
Robert Smith
Jonathan Spinks
Robbie Verspui
Joseph Webber
Eric Yates

$1,500 Triple Chance No Limit Hold’em

After beginning the day eighth out of ten in chips, Memphis poker pro David Diaz rallied from the short stack to claim his first WSOP gold bracelet, beating Anders Meli heads-up for the title and the $352,808 first place prize.

Bryan Devonshire Talks Pot Limit Hold’em

Call us crazy, but players seem to be questioning the validity of Pot Limit Hold’em more this year than ever.  Bryan Devonshire talked to BLUFF about some of the differences between the Pot Limit and No Limit versions of the game.

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