Amazon Room remarkably still before WSOP H.O.R.S.E. stampede

24 June 2007

By Aaron Todd

Walking into the Amazon Room at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino yesterday, you would never have known that the fifth-largest poker tournament in history was underway.

With the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. tournament set to begin today at noon, many of the top pros were sitting out of the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em event that started yesterday, and even those who were playing seemed somewhat uninterested. Phil Laak hardly noticed when Humberto Brenes arrived at his table … he was too absorbed in his video game.

While a number of pros were sitting out, amateur players flocked to the low buy-in event, as 2,778 players began play with the hopes of taking home the first place prize of $673,628.

Some of the well-known players who did enter and made it through the first day include: Marcel Luske, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Kathy Liebert, Alex Jacob, Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Erica Shoenberg.

Now we've seen some players enter multiple tournaments at one time in the last two years. But you have to wonder if players (Luske, Nguyen, Liebert and Ferguson particularly) will attempt to pull off a live multi-table jaunt with a $50,000 entry on the line.

H.O.R.S.E. mega satellite players: "Why me?"
The final $2,250 mega satellite for the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event was played last night, with the top two players earning seats and the third place finisher winning about $35,000 in cash. While this reporter retired for the night before the winners were determined, he does know that there were six players who couldn't have been too excited about sitting at a table with Phil Gordon and Amir Vahedi.