During Day 2a of the 2011 World Series of Poker, we all learned an important lesson about friendship, perseverance, and making sure you double-check your schedule.
The Poker Brat finished Day 1C with a small stack, but a stack of almost 12k nonetheless– given the way that Phil Hellmuth plays and how badly he wants another bracelet (especially another Main Event), we all know that as long as he has some chips left, he has a shot. All eyes were on Hellmuth, who is currently leading the WSOP 2011 Player of the Year race, waiting to see how he would play on Day 2a… and then he didn’t show.
Other players sat by and watched as Hellmuth’s $11,800 was eaten away by blinds, but Mike Matusow had his friend’s back. First, he tried calling Hellmuth’s cell phone. It was turned off. He tried ringing the room, but the hotel had a “do not disturb.” The Mouth managed to get them to ring the room anyway, but there was no answer. Finally, while tweeting “@phil_hellmuth is such an idiot hes getting blinded off has 5k left” and “how can anyone be this dumb,” Matusow somehow convinced hotel security to break into Phil Hellmuth’s room. Hellmuth’s response was this: “Security broke into my room, I’m like, ‘What’s going on?!?’ Sguard says, ‘You’re playing in the World Series of Poker today.'” After racing to the event (reportedly going 75 on side roads to get there), Hellmuth further tweeted that he thought that he played on Day 2b on Tuesday, and that it had never occurred to him that he might play on Monday. This is a lesson to all you future players: make sure you know which day you play.
There is a greater lesson to be learned from this, one about good sportsmanship and friendship. Matusow himself said it best: “@phil_hellmuth yea I had them break in you idiot least you know who your friends are.”
Hellmuth went on to play some excellent poker today, taking his under 7k stack and turning it into 64,900 by the end of the day. While the chip leaders of Day 2a– Aleksandr Mozhnyakov (478,600), Tuan Vo (434,500), Guillaume Darcourt (410,500), and Stephane Albertini (400,100)– are clearly so far ahead of Hellmuth that they likely aren’t too worried about him, Hellmuth has shown the dedication and resolve to make this work for him. At this point, a certain amount of Hellmuth’s success will come down to luck.
A lot of big names were sent packing today, including Ram Vaswani, Dan Harrington (so his M-Theory didn’t work out this time), Marcel Luske, Phil Gordon, Victoria Coren, and Johnny Chan, who has already snagged multiple bracelets off the main event in the past. Other players managed to strengthen their position, and some of the players moving up in the ranks include Sebastian Ruthenberg (currently at 16 with 289,400), Jason Alexander (at 70 with 167k), Eli Elezra, who bagged an extra 40k to end the day at 160k, Americans Shane Abbott (resting at 239,000 in position 29), and Brendan Taylor (in position 10 with 313.5k) and Italian Biagio Morciano, who gained over 100k to close the day in position 12 with around 307k.
Day 1a leader Fred Berger had managed to hold on to his stack of about 200k, but didn’t move much during Day 2a, closing out today’s action with 205k. Likewise, Daniel Negreanu has gained less than 10k and is keeping steady at around 114k. Norwegian Wunderkind Annette Obrestad finished out the day with a substantial loss of around 220k, leaving her short-stacked at 90,500 going into the third day on Thursday.