World Series of Poker's main event Day 4

[clevfan]

World Series of Poker's main event Day 4

The Associated Press
Monday, July 7, 2008
DAY: 4 (Officially known as Day 1D).

BIG NEWS: The top prize at the main event of the World Series of Poker will be $9.12 million this year, and 666 players will get some piece of a $64.3 million prize pool, tournament officials said Sunday.

More than one-third of the tournament's entrants entered the no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament Sunday, the last day players were able to register. The 2,461 players pushed the total field to 6,844 players.

There were nearly 500 more players than last year but far fewer than 2006, when a record 8,773 players entered and Jamie Gold won $12 million.

The top prize of $9,119,517 is the second largest in the main event's history.

Tardy stragglers headed to the booths outside the main tournament room with $10,000 — mostly in cash or live casino chips — to register, get their seats and start playing.

When they started play, they faced a field of some of poker's most elite players, including Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Howard Lederer, Annie Duke, Gus Hansen, Phil Gordon and Men Nguyen.

STUD OF THE DAY: Donald Hobbs, 24, of Pineville, Ky., who suffered burns over more than 70 percent of his body and multiple leg fractures in a car accident in 2007, but rehabilitated enough to enter the main event on Sunday.

Hobbs' injuries were worsened because he has hemophilia, a rare genetic bleeding disorder, but during his rehabilitation his therapist learned that Hobbs enjoyed playing and watching poker. She got word to 2003 champ Chris Moneymaker, who visited him and promised to fly him to the main event this year if he got better. He did, and Moneymaker's sponsor, online poker site PokerStars, flew Hobbs to Las Vegas and entered him in the main event.

"I'm holding in there," Hobbs said as Moneymaker watched him play at the start of the day. "I'm just going to ride it out and see how it goes."

BUSTED OUT: Mixed martial arts fighter Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell, poker pros Phil Ivey, David Williams, Annie Duke and Andy Bloch, actress and poker pro Jennifer Tilly.

UP NEXT: Players have an off day Monday and those who survived the first two opening days will join together and start a second session of action on Tuesday.

POKER TALK: Floating the flop: when a player calls with no hand on the flop, with the intention of bluffing an opponent out of the pot on the turn. Poker professional Phil Laak, known as an aggressive player willing to take chances with marginal hands, said Sunday that he was able to float flops against the other players at his table who were unwilling to invest in the pot without a made hand.

HE SAID WHAT?: "On a scale of one to 10 I thought it was going to look like a nine and a half. It's like an eight. But if they see something's funny they don't know it's me, so it's huge." — Phil "The Unabomber" Laak, explaining the disguise he used to keep opponents from recognizing him. Instead of donning his usual sunglasses and hooded sweat shirt, Laak spent all morning with a makeup artist who used a latex mask, paint and a fake mustache and beard to make the player look completely different.