As the popularity of high roller tournaments has risen in the past years, the World Poker Tour has introduced an own series with at least $100,000 buy-in at each stop. The show has been named WPT Alpha8 and its first stop is Florida, where they shuffled up and dealt on 26 August. The $100,000 event is part of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open schedule.
A total of 20 players had initially announced to participate but only seven of them turned up by the start, sitting at a single table, which gave reasons for organisers to worry. Eventually, many players arrived late and 18 participants registered. With three of them rebuying, the prize pool was set at $2,026,500.
The field consisted mostly of US poker pros. The 18 entrants were the following: JC Tran, Jason Mercier, Andrew Lichtenberger, Joseph Cheong, Isaac Haxton, Matt Glantz, Jason Koon, Erik Seidel, Dan Shak, Daniel Alaei, Jeff Gross, Tom Hall, Steven Silverman, Chris Klodnicki, Daniel Perper, Brandon Steven, Bill Perkins and Philipp Gruissem.
The cards favoured EPT London 2009 High Roller champion Glantz the most, qualifying for Day 2 with 410,500 in chips. He is followed by Mercier with 375,500 and Silverman with 372,500.
Matt Glantz
Alaei, Haxton, Gross, Cheong, Tran and Perkins accompany them on the second event day, which makes a total of nine qualifiers. November Nine chipleader Tran has thus been given an opportunity to mentally prepare for the WSOP Main Event finale as well.
“9 players left and I drew seat 7. Same seat as November. I'm asking each guy to look up who they are supposed to mock and help me out. :D :D :D” he tweeted.
Newly signed 888Poker pro JC Tran wears the room colours
The nine-handed play did not go well for him, however, as Silverman doubled up on him on the last level of the day, 11 (500/2,000/4,000). Perkins opened from the CO to 10,000, Slverman called from the Button and Tran 3-bet to 27,000. Perkins folded, Silverman called and the flop came
4 5 
6 . Tran c-bet to 38,000, Silverman pushed all-in and Tran called.
Silverman:5 
5
Tran:K 
K
Turn:8
River:A
Silverman won the hand with trips.
Tran returns today to the table 8th in the chip count with 94,000 in chips, where the average stack size is 233,333. The players are one more elimination away from the official final table but even that does not mean an ITM finish with only the top four places paying.
The chip counts are as follows:
Matt Glantz – 410,500
Jason Mercier – 375,500
Steven Silverman – 372,500
Daniel Alaei – 293,500
Isaac Haxton – 218,500
Jeff Gross – 140,500
Joseph Cheong – 106,000
JC Tran – 94,000
Bill Perkins – 89,000
Prizes:
1st: $891,660
2nd: $526,890
3rd: $364,770
4th: $243,180
A total of 20 players had initially announced to participate but only seven of them turned up by the start, sitting at a single table, which gave reasons for organisers to worry. Eventually, many players arrived late and 18 participants registered. With three of them rebuying, the prize pool was set at $2,026,500.
The field consisted mostly of US poker pros. The 18 entrants were the following: JC Tran, Jason Mercier, Andrew Lichtenberger, Joseph Cheong, Isaac Haxton, Matt Glantz, Jason Koon, Erik Seidel, Dan Shak, Daniel Alaei, Jeff Gross, Tom Hall, Steven Silverman, Chris Klodnicki, Daniel Perper, Brandon Steven, Bill Perkins and Philipp Gruissem.
The cards favoured EPT London 2009 High Roller champion Glantz the most, qualifying for Day 2 with 410,500 in chips. He is followed by Mercier with 375,500 and Silverman with 372,500.
Matt Glantz
Alaei, Haxton, Gross, Cheong, Tran and Perkins accompany them on the second event day, which makes a total of nine qualifiers. November Nine chipleader Tran has thus been given an opportunity to mentally prepare for the WSOP Main Event finale as well.
“9 players left and I drew seat 7. Same seat as November. I'm asking each guy to look up who they are supposed to mock and help me out. :D :D :D” he tweeted.
Newly signed 888Poker pro JC Tran wears the room colours
The nine-handed play did not go well for him, however, as Silverman doubled up on him on the last level of the day, 11 (500/2,000/4,000). Perkins opened from the CO to 10,000, Slverman called from the Button and Tran 3-bet to 27,000. Perkins folded, Silverman called and the flop came
4 5 6 . Tran c-bet to 38,000, Silverman pushed all-in and Tran called.Silverman:
5 5 Tran:
K K Turn:
8 River:
A Silverman won the hand with trips.
Tran returns today to the table 8th in the chip count with 94,000 in chips, where the average stack size is 233,333. The players are one more elimination away from the official final table but even that does not mean an ITM finish with only the top four places paying.
The chip counts are as follows:
Matt Glantz – 410,500
Jason Mercier – 375,500
Steven Silverman – 372,500
Daniel Alaei – 293,500
Isaac Haxton – 218,500
Jeff Gross – 140,500
Joseph Cheong – 106,000
JC Tran – 94,000
Bill Perkins – 89,000
Prizes:
1st: $891,660
2nd: $526,890
3rd: $364,770
4th: $243,180
