How would you spend roughly $1,500,000? For most of us such problems will never be anything other than hypothetical. Yet for one of today’s $25,000 High Rollers it’ll soon be unavoidable.
There was barely enough time to reload the confetti cannon after Fabian Quoss’ $100,000 Super High Roller victory before players were back in the ballroom for another crack at a High Roller title. Thanks to a record breaking turnout on Day 1 here in The Bahamas, the winner’s celebrations on Monday should rival that of Quoss’ and then some.
162 players arrived ready to part with their $25,000 entrance fee today — one more than last year — and there’s still until 12pm tomorrow to register or re-enter. On the subject of second chances, 43 rebuys have already been chucked into the prize pool, swelling it by an extra $1,000,000 or so before the end of the day. One player who won’t have such negative ideas in mind though is Jonathan Jaffe.
Out of all today’s Day 1 brawlers, Jaffe ended the day with the fewest cuts and bruises to bag an impressive 422,000. He’ll be looking to add a first major title to a live tournament resumĂ© that to date has a healthy $1.4 million figure stamped on top of it.
For a while, that chip lead belonged to Philipp Gruissem, who is currently ‘just’ $26,000 or so away from taking his live career earnings past the $8,000,000 mark. Although cutting his stack from more than 400,000 to 290,300 in the final levels did little to help his chances.
Remarkably, if Gruissem were to win, it’ll be his third seven-figure score in a little over three months following back-to-back WPT Alpha 8 victories, but it’s Jaffe who’ll go to bed tonight knowing that the lead is his to keep. Well, for a few more hours at least.
Looking over your shoulder can be a hairy prospect in talent-dense fields such as these, and those hunting down Jaffe include the likes of Ole Schemion (347,700), Daniel Negreanu (344,000), Mickey Petersen (233,000) and that man Quoss again, although with just 84,000 he’ll need to start motoring. Should he manage a comeback and the almighty Super High Roller and High Roller double here in paradise, it’ll be the first of its kind in EPT history.
Those who won’t be lurking behind Jaffe and the gang for Day 2 unless they choose to rebuy include Antonio ‘One Drop’ Esfandiari, Ryan ‘World Champ’ Riess and Chris ‘tournament beast’ Moorman. But there will be the chance to chase the chip leader for 2013 winner, Vanessa Selbst, who rebounded from her exit from the Main Event in 42nd well enough to build a 150,000 plus stack over in the High Roller den.
Last year Selbst walked away with a $1,424,420 first place prize. That should be a tad smaller than what’s eventually on offer this time around.
One player who has his work cut out if he wants to follow Selbst into the High Roller Club is Jason Mercier (85,500). Mercier, who at one point knocked out two players thanks to flopping an eight-high straight to crush pocket kings and a flopped set, was the owner of a top ten chip stack at one point, but the last few levels were fairly brutal on the Floridian.
Joining Selbst and Mercier for Day 2 will be Team PokerStars pals Jonathan Duhamel (192,300), Jake Cody (75,000), Eugene Katchalov (23,5000) and ElkY (99,308). For the likes of Andre Akkari, Johnny Lodden and Angel Guillen they’ll have to re-buy tomorrow if they still fancy their chances.
That’s that then from a late night here at Atlantis. Play begins again at 12:00 Eastern Time tomorrow, and we’ll be there from the get-go to bring you all the day’s biggest stories. For more from the past hours, check out our highlights reel below.
Extra tales from a place called paradise
Click through to live updates, features and interviews from the $10,000,000 guaranteed PCA Main Event, the $25,000 High Roller and the $100,000 Super High Roller.
Keir Mackay is a copywriter for PokerStars.
