Travel Report: Season XIII WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble, Day 2 -- Chip in the Box

Day 2 at the World Poker Tour bestbet Bounty Scramble was a marathon of a day, lasting from noon until after 2 a.m. They played from 161 players down to 27, with Jason Helder who ended the Day 1 flights with the chip lead still the pace-setter with a leading stack.

Jamie Gold is among those still in the hunt, too. In fact he was the first player to get to 1 million chips yesterday before coming back to the pack by night’s end. He again was the source of a lot of table talk and interaction, making things a degree more interesting for the observer than is usually the case. Can’t speak to how his presence and behavior affected others who were playing with him, but most seemed to roll with it.

I was writing about reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63 on the way here, a time-travel story. Indeed, there’s a “time travel” feel to watching Gold here doing all the same things we saw him doing back in 2006 during his Main Event run.

Daniel Strelitz (54th), Zo Karim (49th), last year’s “Scramble” winner Jared Jaffee (47th), Matt Jarvis (45th), Mohsin Charania (44th), John Racener (39th), former NFL player Richard Seymour (37th), and last year’s third-place “Scramble” finisher Margo Costa (33rd) were among those cashing yesterday.

Probably the most memorable moment yesterday came shortly after they’d reached the money. Matt Jarvis was actually the shortest stack in the room with 55 left, and only 54 paid. But he survived into the money, then shortly after had won a pot that saw the dealer sweeping chips afterwards to him seated next to him in Seat 1.

The dealer got a little too close to the jackpot box in between them with the move, and a chip found its way into the box which led to a lot of hilarity and a little consternation as there wasn’t a key handy to get in there to retrieve it. (See pic above by the great Joe Giron.)

In fact, it wasn’t clear at the time if just one chip fell in or perhaps more, and so when play continued while a key was fetched and Jarvis got involved in a hand, that created a somewhat intriguing situation. You can read about “Jarvis and the Jackpot Box” here.

Gonna close it here as Day 3 is already almost here. Check the WPT site for updates today in between tuning into the November Nine and following the PokerNews coverage of that tonight.