Posted by Andrew Feldman
3:50 p.m. ET: Good morning/afternoon, everyone! All the players had a day off yesterday, but the media was quite busy. I played in the media tournament, and suffered an entertaining beat that is covered fully on the
Poker Edge. After the media tournament, PokerStars had its yearly party at Rain in the Palms. They put on a great party and I never in my life thought I would be in attendance for a Nelly concert, but there I was listening to "Shake Ya Tailfeather." The crowd was into it and a ton of players were there, including many who are still alive in the main event. I spoke to Jordan Farmar, whom
Gary Wise wrote about today, and he was enjoying the experience of being thrown into a completely different celebrity world.
Anyway, enough about yesterday -- let's talk about today. Day 3 kicked off with a bang. The remaining field of 2,044 took their seats, with Tom Franklin performing today's "Shuffle Up and Deal." I noticed that from my seat I had a good view of Bertrand Grospellier. Right next to him was Kent Senter, the player who was diagnosed with cancer and has only six months to two years to live. On the first or second hand, Grospellier eliminated Senter and has since knocked out another player to grow his stack to nearly $300,000.
The Poker Edge
Andrew Feldman goes behind the scenes of the WSOP Media Event with ESPN.com's Gary Wise, "Chops" from Wicked Chops Poker, Lacey Jones and WSOP media directors Seth Palansky and Nolan Dalla.
Podcast »
It was announced at the start that players would be here until 3:45 a.m. ET after five levels of play. I can't believe they put a definitive time on the day, but I guess I'm happy that today won't go for more than five levels. Tables are being broken to my left in the Orange section, but quickly replaced by tables coming from the Brasilia Room. The field still isn't all in one place, but will be at some point today.
Day 3 is typically moving day, when players begin to fight for position for a deep run. While it still will be that in some sense, the real moving day will be after the money bubble is burst tomorrow afternoon. Today will be another fight for survival, but for some, that fight has ended quickly. We've lost more than 130 players in the first 40 minutes (including Erik Seidel, Roland de Wolfe and Bluff's Eric Morris), and the rapid rate of elimination will continue all through the day. It's time for the table bully to become aggressive and for the short stacks to pick a perfect spot.
In terms of stories, I've got my eyes on Grospellier, the celebrities (Farmar, Lou Diamond Phillips, Jason Alexander) and the champions (Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer). Time to chat at SportsNation.
Small blinds: I just heard a story that a player has renounced his U.S. citizenship. OK then. … Hachem and Jeffrey Lisandro are at the feature table. … Matt Hawrilenko tweeted that he has a tough table and "it had to happen eventually." … Bill Gazes has the cameras stationed at his table. … A player moved all-in, won the pot and wanted to give the guy next to him a high five. He didn't get one.
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