2005 WSOP Diary From The Rio! 

The inaugural Dakota Poker League champ takes on Phil Ivey in the 2005 World Series of Poker...

Day 9
Joseph Hachem wins th

e 2005 WSOP over Steve Dannenmann.  $7.5 million!

Mike Matusow loses a huge pot early when his K-K vs. A-A spikes a King on the flop, only to be outdrawn by runner-runner flush.  Later he is the first player to bust out on the final table. 

Binion's - Final Table opening chip counts:

1.  Aaron Kanter - $10,700,000 (seat 6)  

2.  Tex Barch - $9,330,000 (seat 3)  

3.  Andrew Black - $8,140,000 (seat 2)  

4.  Mike Matusow - $7,410,000 (seat 5)  

5.  Steve Dannenmann - $5,460,000 (seat 8)  

6.  Joseph Hachem - $5,420,000 (seat 1)  

7.  Daniel Bergsdorf - $5,270,000 (seat 4)  

8.  Scott Lazar - $3,370,000 (seat 9)  

9.  Brad Kondracki - $1,180,000 (seat 7)  

Day 8

Binion's -  The field started today at 27 players.  Greg Raymer has busted out in 25th place after several big hands did not go his way.  Mike Matusow is still the chip leader with around $5.0 million in chips.  He and Shawn Sheikhan have been going at each other quite a bit.  At one point, tournament officials gave both players a 10 minute time out (Matusow for using the "F-Bomb", Sheikhan for talking about his hand to the crowd).  It's really heating up..

Day 7

End of Day 7: Mike "The Mouth" Matusow is the chip leader.  We're now down to 27 players.  Play will resume tomorrow at 3:00pm (PST) at Binnion's.  Phil Ivey & Greg Raymer are looking very strong and in the top 10 in chips.  The crowds have been rooting for Greg Raymer.

11:00AM -  The field is now down to 58 players.  Tim Phan has taken over the chip lead with $3.2 million in chips.  Mike Matusow, Farzad Bonyadi, Steven Dannenmann, Phil Ivey & John Barch all have over $2 million.  Greg Raymer took a major hit but is still alive with 766k.  John Juanda has 841k. 

Day 6

End of day 6: Dennis Savelkoul (Minot) has been eliminated at 172nd place.  Howard Lederer finished in 133rd place. 

11:00AM -  The field is now down to 185 players.  Greg Raymer is the chip leader!  He has built his stack to just over 1,000,000 in chips.  I see Dennis Savelkoul from Minot is still alive, with 197,500 chips, but there are no other players from ND still in the tournament...Phil Ivey is sitting in 7th place overall with 722,500.  Howard Lederer at $496,500. 

Day 5

10:00PM -  Mitch Schock's run at the WSOP has ended.  He busted out in 477th place and takes home a $14,135 payout.  Mitch outlasted 5,142 players on his way to an impressive showing...Greg Raymer is really come on in today's round.  At last check he has approximately 700,000 in chips and is at or near the top of the chip leaders.  Other notable pros still alive are Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Paul Darden, Dutch Boyd, Mike Matusow & Lane Flack.

Day 4

1:00AM -  The day has finished and Mitch is still alive!  He is currently sitting with 93,300 in chips, which puts him just above the average for the tournament.  They are now down to 566 players, putting him right on the bubble for the money.  Earlier in the day he was moved to a different table.  His best hand of the day was pocket Q's vs. A-Q with all the chips in preflop.  The queens held and from that point he was off and running.   

There should be no problem making the money tomorrow as they are just 6 players away.  Dennis Salvelkoul from Minot is also still alive in the tournament.

1:00PM -  The tournament has gotten off to a late start.  Mitch Schock is sitting to the right of Dutch Boyd.  Dutch has 56,000 in chips.

11:00AM - The 5,600+ player field has been cut down to less than 2,000.  The prize pool was announced, the tournament will pay down to 560 ($12,500) and the overall winner is going to take home $7.5 million.  There are quite a few notable players still alive.  Mitch Schock is short stacked but still alive and we'll continue to post updates as we get them.  Jennifer Spiesz is also alive and well in the tournament.

Day 3

7:00PM - Derek Melicher has busted out of the tournament.  He got trapped by Phil Ivey.  The ESPN cameras rushed over the catch the end of the hand, it went like this: Blinds were 300/150 with 50 ante.  Ivey was under the gun and called the big blind with pocket 7's.  Derek held A-J and also called, plus two other callers and the button raised to 900.  Everyone called, the flop came 7-6-2.  Ivey checked the set and the rest of the table checked around.  The turn came an Ace, Ivey bet 1500, Derek called and there was also one other caller.  The river came a Jack, the worst possible card for Derek, really.  Ivey bet 4,000 (about 1/3 of the pot), Derek didn't like the size of the bet and put him on A-7 and moved in for the rest of his chips.  Ivey thought about it for a while and called, turning over the trip 7's.  Derek was convinced he had the best hand and was surprised.  He said, "Good hand Phil" and acknowledged him.  Tough break for Derek, he played quite well but ran into a big hand against a really good player...Maybe the best player in the world? 

5:00PM - Derek survived the 3rd level and is sitting with roughly 16k in chips.  The dinner break will be at 7pm.

3:00PM - Level 2 has ended.  With about 18 minutes to go to the end of the level Derek looked up A-K and raised 400 under the gun.  The low stack on the table in seat 6 moved in over the top for around $2,500 more.  Derek called.  His opponent held A-J and the board came A-5-K-9-8.  That was the first knockout on this table.  Derek has $9,900 chips at the break.  He has played several hands against Phil Ivey, one of Derek hit trip 8's but was unable to get Phil to call on the turn.

I watched a hand in which Phil Ivey won an $11,000 pot.  Under the gun, he raised $300, got one caller and the big blind re-raised to $1,000.  Phil called and the third player also called.  The flop cam 5h-3h-2d.  Ivey called a $2,000 bet.  The turn produced the 9 of hearts.  The player in seat 7 made a $3,500 bet and after some consideration Ivey called.  The river was the 2 of clubs.  Both players checked and Ivey won showing pocket Jacks and the other player had A-K suited.  ESPN was all over the action.  Ivey  picked up a nice pot of around $11,000 just before the break to bring his stack to roughly 21,200.

1:00PM - Derek has made it through the first break and has dragged his first pots.  His best hand came when pocket JJ's tripped up on the river.  However, at the end of the level he has 9,250 in chips.  Phil Ivey has around $11,000 in chips.

11:15AM - Wow, what a table draw!  Derek is sitting right across from Phil Ivey.  The ESPN camera crew is all over the table.  Just a couple of tables away are pros Doyle Brunson, Howard Lederer & John Juanda.  The feature table has Marcel Luske.  Derek's table is one table in from the rail, his friends are watching.

11:00AM - Pool C begins today.  DPL Champ Derek Melicher will be taking his seat today.  Stay tuned for updates...

Day 2

2:20AM - Day 2 is officially over, we are now down to 620 players.  Phil Hellmuth, Jr. busted out.  Sammy Farha is now among the overall chip leaders.  Mitch Schock is still alive, which is quite an accomplishment considering after 15 hours of play he never hit a set or a straight even once.  He is short-stacked at $11,125 but is in good spirits.  Mimi Rogers is gone.  We noticed a player wearing a Fighting Sioux hockey jersey, Randy McCay, originally from Finley, now living in Arizona.  Another local player, Jennifer Spies, (won her seat in Hankinson) is also playing today and is still alive with around $20,000 in chips. 

7:08 PM - Dinner Break and we are happy to report Mitch made a nice comeback.  There are still 125 tables in play.  He now sits at roughly 14,000 and got on a nice roll in this level.  He outplayed an opponent with a 2-3 offsuit by raising 900 preflop and following up with a nice bet on the flop to take down a pot.  He did not show but tells me, "Now we're playing poker!"  Just before the end of the level the table was broken down and he was moved to a new table in seat #1.  The new table does not have anywhere near the chip stacks sizes of the previous table.  Mimi Rogers is in seat #8 with around 9,000 chips.  The big stack appears to have around 23,000.  The rest of the table is very close.  Should be a nice place for Mitch to make a move.  Look for him to make something happen in this next level...

Amir Vahedi (15,000) and Chris Moneymaker (22,000) are on the same table.

5:00 PM - Daniel Negreanu busted out in this level.  So we'll see if the rumor is true that he will be attending Matt Cullen's celebrity poker tournament at the West Fargo VFW.  Phil Hellmuth, Jr. was moved to the feature table.  Mitch is still kickin, but struggling with 7,000 in chips.  There is a younger player to his immediate right who has been raising and check raising his bets with some success. 

3:27 PM - Mitch took down the first hand to start the 3rd level.  He is still in the same seat he started the tournament with.  The blinds are now 100-200 and he his stack is 9,000.  The player in seat #3 is the table chip leader.  Joe Awada has busted out.  Congrats Mitch, you survived the big name on your table.

3:00 PM - Some chips have moved in the second level.  Mitch has been unable to hit a significant hand and is now one of the low stacks on the table, but has survived to the 2nd break.  He is not sweating it, however.  It turns out the dealer to start the 2nd break was Paul Trieglaff, from Detroit Lakes, MN.  He has been living in Las Vegas for 11 years.

1:00 PM - Mitch is seated in seat #6 on table #142.  He broke the ice by dragging his first pot 10 minutes into the first level.  Joe Awada arrived 30 minutes late and took the #4 seat.  Awada loses a few pots in the first level and is the low stack on the table.  The first player to bust out on this table was at 12:22PM (seat #2) when his AA fell victim to quad 7's on a bad call. At the end of the first break Mitch has approx 12,800 in chips. 

There are a lot of big names in today's pool of players.  The ESPN feature table has Daniel Negreanu and Sammy Farhah.  We also found Phil Hellmuth, Jr., Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Moneymaker, Eric Lindgren, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Chip Reese, etc., etc.

July 8, 2005  - Cards will be dealt at 11:00 AM PST.  Mitch Schock will play today and we will watch him.  Stay tuned for live updates from his table.

Day 1

July 7, 2005  - CONCLUSION OF DAY 1 - The cards were dealt at 11:00 AM and play was not wrapped up until 2:00 AM, 15 hours later when they finally reached 663 players.  Officially there are 5,661 players registered for the main event.  Greg Raymer was on the featured table (pictured in seat 1 above) and ended up finishing the day with $39,625 in chips, not bad.  The overall chip leader in the tournament is Lee Watkinson with a monster stack of $145,800.  Several notable pros have busted out, including Eric Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Johnny Chan, Scott Fischman, Josh Arieh, Mike Sexton, Mike Caro, David "Devil Fish" Ulliot, among others...

The floor itself is packed with people in the gallery.  When you enter the room the first thing you notice is the sound of the constant dull roar of poker chips.  It is something else.

I'm telling you, this place is a poker geek's paradise.  There is an exhibit hall next to the main convention area with dozens of poker-related vendor booths and several poker celebrities signing autographs, etc.  Just about every vendor has some sort of giveaway.  I just couldn't help myself, I spent some time browsing and enjoying the atmosphere. 
 

Settled In...

July 6, 2005 - LAS VEGAS -  Smooth sailing and the Dakota Poker League crew has made it.  First thing we noticed...the heat.  Stepped off the plane (7pm) into an air temperature of 102 degrees.

Derek's group of supporters coined him "The Dakota Kid".  Several of his friends have joined him at his pad at the Luxor (nice!).

Later in the evening we made our way over to the Rio and Derek got his seat assignment.  We learned he will play on Saturday (pool C).  Plenty of time now to enjoy the scene. 

Enjoy it we did.  What an amazing scene.  I could hardly believe my eyes when we walked into the event center, the night before the main event and there are nearly 1500 players seated at table stakes ranging from $2/$4 Limit Holdem all the way up to to a 4000/8000 game...Faces everywhere, I kept seeing players I recgonized from television but couldn't put a name to the face.  Right away we walked past Antonio Estfandiari in the lobby.  A quick turn of the head, but no site of Shannon Elizabeth.

Ran into Mitch Schock (Dakota Poker Tour - Bismarck) he plays on Friday.  That's the day he hoped for.  He was already having a great time, having recently taken 3rd place in a $100 rebuy tournament at the Mirage.  He encouraged me to get in a last chance satellite for a seat, so I did...267 players, first place $17k, paid down 18 places.  My hopes of playing in this year's WSOP ended when I busted out 21st with my A-J vs A-5 when my opponent nailed the nut flush.  The tournament was top heavy so no cash. Mitch bought breakfast.  -thanks Mitch.

Jason witnessed the final table of the $5,000 w/rebuys Two to Seven Draw Lowball event.  David Grey took it down, we recognized Dewey Tomko (3rd place) and Jason remarked, "he looks shorter in real life". 

The Journey Begins...

July 5, 2005 - FARGO - Derek Melicher flies out for Las Vegas tomorrow and will soon find himself at the Grand Daddy of all poker tournaments.  The player pool is so large there will be 3 opening rounds just to get the field down to 2000 players.  As of yet, Derek does not know which day he will play but should find out tomorrow when he registers in person at the Rio.  Last we heard of Mitch Schock (Dakota Poker Tour) he was driving...yes, driving to Las Vegas.  Knowing Mitch he's probably found a game somewhere between here and there...We'll give a shout out to Mitch tomorrow to see where he's at and find out what day he takes his seat at the big show.  STAY TUNED!