It was a slow start and a rough Day 1 in the $1,000,000 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) Big One for One Drop for poker legend Phil Ivey, who busted just before the session concluded.
The Poker Hall of Famer and WPT ambassador was among the 17 players who registered for the seven-figure tournament, and one of three who couldn’t find a bag.
Poker Legend Can’t Find a Fold
Ivey started off slowly, losing a decent amount of his 1,000,000-chip stack relatively early in the tournament. He’d battle throughout the day before Level 8, the final level of the night, where he tangled with Dan Smith in a monster pot.
On a flop of A♠10♣2♠, following an under the gun check, Smith bet 80,000 with Q♦J♦ and received a call from Ivey, who was holding A♥Jx. After the K♠ on the turn, action checked to Smith again and he bet 180,000 with the straight he’d just hit. For a second straight time, his bet was called.
The river was a meaningless 7♣, and Ivey checked it one last time to the high-stakes crusher. Smith shoved all in for 425,000 effective and Ivey, after using four time extension chips, decided on a call, which of course meant he was eliminated from the tournament just a few minutes prior to the end of the session. David Einhorn and Talal Shakerchi were the other two players who busted on Day 1 in this freezeout event.
Ivey spoke with PokerNews prior to the start of play, and he admitted he hasn’t played much poker recently and was “coming in cold” to the $1 million buy-in event.
Smith on Cruise Control
The late pot against Ivey brought Smith from being a slight chip leader to a massive chip leader heading into Tuesday’s Day 2 session. He bagged 3,680,000 chips, good for 180 big blinds. Santhosh Suvarna and Adrian Mateos both had just over 2 million chips at the end of play. Full chip counts will be available later tonight.
Jason Koon, Isaac Haxton, and Fedor Holz were also among the many superstars who paid $1 million to play in this charity event, which was previously hosted during the World Series of Poker (WSOP) every few years up until 2018.
Chris Brewer left Wynn Las Vegas late Monday night with the smallest stack at under 15 big blinds.
Registration closed following Level 5, which means payouts are already available. Four spots will be paid with first place worth $7,114,500 and a min-cash good for $1,224,800.
*Image courtesy of World Poker Tour.