To ‘hit-and-run’ in poker is to join a cash game, win some big pots and leave quickly before your opponents have a chance to win their money back. The analogy with the traffic crime of the same name is obvious: cause harm and disappear at speed.
It therefore doesn’t apply in tournament poker, where no one can take chips off the table, but sometimes a car crash analogy is apt, nonetheless. At least, that’s what came to mind yesterday when Phil Ivey max late-regged for the $5K 8-handed NLH, sitting down with a dozen or so big blinds to play with, and promptly hit the skids within just a few hands.
We’ve no doubt Ivey will be back in action very soon, but not in the $5K NLH, which will see 25 survivors return on Friday to play down to a final five.
Antonio Gallana is the overnight chip leader with 3.6M, but the chasing pack contains the likes of Georgios Sotiropoulos (2nd, 3M), ‘Texas Mike’ Moncek (7th, 1.8M), Justin Saliba (15th, 1.1M) and Ethan ‘Rampage’ Yau (23rd, 360K). Players are in the money, and the winner will bank $582,008.
Daniel Negreanu's first event of the summer
Another $5K event got started on Thursday, this one of the pot-limit Omaha (PLO) variety. Daniel Negreanu told us it would be his first event of the series, and so it proved to be, with Kid Poker bagging up at the end of Day 1. His stack of 89K (around 11 big blinds) suggests he’ll need to find some hands soon when play resumes, as he sits 111th of 123, with 114 making the money.
There are a ton of big names still fighting as the bubble looms, including many near the bottom of the chip counts. Negreanu needs to make some moves to get out of the basement, but then so do the likes of Viktor Blom (105th, 101K), Jake Schwartz (107th, 99K) and Mike Gorodinsky (109th, 94K).
At the other end of the table, New Zealand’s Matthew Beck and Michael Duek of the USA are the only players with stacks of a million chips or more; Beck is in the driver’s seat with 1.3M, with Duek close behind on 1M.
757 entries have created a prizepool of $3,573,040. A min-cash is worth $9,960, but all eyes will be on the $620,696 up top.
With both $5K events featuring star-laden fields, the implications for the first week of the PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll are significant for all those playing along online.
Everyone wants to get a good start, although — just as with Phil Ivey’s brief cameo in the $5K NLH — a bad start will by no means kill your chances for a successful series. There’s a long way to go, and you can follow all the big stories relating to the Fantasy Freeroll right here.
And his second... at the same time?
What will Negreanu do if he can’t spin up a stack in the $5K PLO? If we had to hazard a guess we’d say he’d head right over to the $25K Heads-Up Championship (HUC).
Luckily, we don’t have to guess: Negreanu’s already registered for this one too.
For reasons of structure — it’s a series of heads-up knockout matches — there’s a hard cap on numbers in the HUC, and Negreanu is one of 58 to have signed up at time of writing. First round matches start at noon, the same time as the $5K PLO resumes.
Live multi-tabling is nothing new, but playing two different games at the same time is no easy feat — especially if they’re being held in different rooms. Add in the extra complication of a heads-up tournament where you’re in the blinds literally every hand, and we’re keen to see how Negreanu approaches this particular logistical problem.
Will he surrender his stack in the PLO? Will he get shove-happy, build a stack and be forced to choose which one gets blinded away? Will we see him hot-footing it from one to the other?
With genetic cloning not yet sufficiently advanced for this use case, we’d at least suggest some grippy sneakers so he doesn’t spin out on the corners when running from one table to another.
The rooms are likely to be packed, too. The $1K Mystery Millions is still pulling in crowds by the thousands, with Day 1D starting at 10am. Elsewhere the $1,500 O8 should be crowning a winner, the $1,500 Stud will be playing past the bubble and the $1,500 Dealers Choice will be starting at 2pm.
Remember: Whether you're negotiating a busy hallway or a dangerous flop, stay safe out there.
