Travel Report: Season XII WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Day 5 -- King Dan’s Two-Outer

Was a full day yesterday for Day 5 of the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic as they played down from 21 to the final six.

The tourney was relocated to the “high-limit” area of the Bellagio poker room, an elevated section in the far right corner, which took the players out of the center of the very active cash games happening at the mostly filled tables in the rest of the room.

Once the three tables played down to a final ten-handed table, the final table of that $100K high roller event the Bellagio was putting on was moved over into the same area as well, and in fact would play out long after we finished with Brian Rast winning more than $1 million for topping a small field.

Rast was one of the couple of players who had actually entered the $10K WPT event seven times (thanks to the unlimited re-entry format), and so despite finishing in 32nd and in the money, he’d lost more than $40K in that one as his cash was only for a little over $26K.

Not sure if Rast re-entered the $100K or not, but you can check out reports on the event by Eric of Poker Telegraph who was on hand to file updates on that one from start-to-finish.

The big news entering Day 5, of course, was the prospect of start-of-day chip leader Jean-Robert Bellande perhaps making the televised final table and thus adding a bit of entertainment to the proceedings later today. JRB was still leading at mid-afternoon yesterday, but had one calamitous level that took him from the top of the counts to the bottom, and it wasn’t long after they’d gone to the ten-handed final table that he busted in 10th.

It took a good while, but finally they reached the final six with Dan Smith the chip leader. Smith had narrowly avoided finishing 16th in the tournament when he’d been all in with 10-10 versus the K-K of Steven Silverman and no help had come on either the flop or turn. But a 10 fell on fifth street to save Smith, and he’d go on to carry the lead to today while Silverman would be the one to finish 16th.

“King Dan” will be joined by Eddy Sabat and Joe Serock at this final table, as well as a player named Shaun Suller whom I met a few times covering WSOP Circuit stops. Suller is a friendly guy and I overheard him telling the WPT TV crew in an interview how he planned to donate a percentage of his winnings to the Jimmy V Foundation, which gave me another reason to be glad he’d made the final table.

Meanwhile others coming up short along with Bellande and Silverman were Christian Harder, Dan O’Brien, and Will Failla.

Have a hectic day ahead and so am cutting things short again. Check over at the WPT site for updates later on from tonight’s final table. Should be interesting to see the staging and presentation for the TV show, as Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten, Lynn Gilmartin will all be there to do their commentary as it goes.

Barcelona Bound

Am packing once more here as I prepare to fly out this afternoon to join the PokerStars crew and help cover the European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event for the PokerStars blog. This is the start of Season 10 of the EPT, and there’s a lot of excitement surrounding both the tour getting going again and the fact that Barcelona -- seemingly everyone’s favorite stop -- is the site of the coming week’s proceedings.

Will be an especially busy scene there. Besides the EPT Barcelona series (with 27 different tournaments), the Spain-based Estrellas Poker Tour is having its stop at Barcelona as well (with eight more events). The Estrellas events got going on Wednesday, and I believe all of these tournaments will be completed by next Saturday, September 7.

The EPT is thriving. Just looking at the turnouts for the EPT Barcelona Main Events for the last few years, they’ve been increasing at a rapid clip. Since they changed the buy-in to €5,000 + €300 for Season 7, the field sizes have been 758 entries (EPT7), 811 (EPT8), and 1,082 (EPT9). Talking to players both at the WSOP and afterwards and overhearing some of the table talk earlier this week in Florida, it definitely sounds like the ME will at least challenge last year’s total.

As I try to remember my passport, power converters, and other essentials, I’m currently tuning into the EPT Live stream on which they’re already showing action from the Casino de Barcelona at Hotel Arts where the €48,500 + €1,500 buy-in “Super High Roller” is already underway.

Kind of funny to see the same guys I was reporting on just a couple of days ago in the World Poker Tour Alpha8 Florida event sitting around the tables there in Barcelona, including that event’s winner Steven Silverman. Like the Alpha8, this EPT Super High Roller also features unlimited re-entries (up until the beginning of Day 2).

As I’ve mentioned here before, I lived in France for a whole year once but somehow never made it to Spain despite having thought about tripping down there on more than one occasion during that time. Am thus very excited about getting this opportunity.

Gonna have to cut things off here now. Talk to you again from the other side of the Atlantic.

Travel Report: WPT Alpha8 Florida, Day 2 -- Florida Finale

The second and last day of the $100,000 buy-in World Poker Tour Alpha8 Florida event played out in relatively rapid fashion, with play starting a little after noon yesterday and wrapping up around 11 p.m. or thereabouts. Steven Silverman ended up winning the sucker, outlasting current WSOP Main Event chip leader J.C. Tran to take the title after a brief heads-up battle.

That up above is a shot Joe Giron took yesterday for the WPT from up in the bleachers looking down on the playing area I was describing before. Kind of an uncanny-looking scene from that vantage point.

Josh and I arrived and set up late morning, then mostly were behind the laptops entering hands, our day broken up a couple of times by breaks. One came early on after Bill Perkins busted in ninth, at which point the crew took some time setting up to shoot the official eight-handed final table. Then another short dinner break came later after start-of-day leader Matt Glantz busted in fourth for a “min-cash” of $243,180.

During that first break Josh and I took a walk around the Seminole Hard Rock property, taking a look at the modest water fountain show play out (kind of a mini-version of the Bellagio’s) while noting the small lizards positioned in the greenery around the water’s perimeter. With temps in the 80s it’s definitely a pleasant time to be in south Florida, and I can imagine a trip to the Seminole might offer a lot to entertain visitors with its sights, shopping, shows, and of course, the casino.

Following that second break for dinner Jeff Gross went out in third for a $364,770 cash. Silverman led Tran slightly to start heads-up play, and Tran even grabbed an early lead before Silverman earned a big double-up and then finished off Tran shortly thereafter. Tran took away $526,890 while “Zugwat” won $891,660. (Hell of a year playing out for Tran, eh?)

Silverman also won a huge trophy shaped as the number “8” -- not sure what it is made of, but it looks silver, man.

None of the four cashers had re-entered the event, and none of the three players who bought in twice cashed. Isaac Haxton was one of those who’d fired twice, and he unfortunately finished fifth after leading with five to go then experiencing some misfortune to fall on the bubble.

As I was saying earlier in the week, more Alpha8 events are certainly in the works, so it’ll be curious to see how this “super high roller” tour fares and whether it ultimately manages to attract the participation of those who regularly play the six-figure events elsewhere during the year.

After all was done and the final interviews were shot, the whole “WPT family” assembled around the table for a final group picture and before too long we were packing up and heading back to the hotel. Got a reasonable night’s sleep, then this morning was able to meet an old student of mine who lives in the area and had contacted me not long ago. Kind of a highlight of the trip to reunite and catch up with him.

Overall it was a fun few days and I got a kick out of getting to know some of the WPT folks and seeing how a yet another group -- an especially well-seasoned and talented one in this case -- puts on and covers a poker tourney.

Looking forward now to getting home and resting up today and tomorrow before flying to Spain on Friday where I’ll again see a lot of the players and other media folks who were here in Florida this week. I guess this was sort of an end-of-summer bash for a lot of folks, with “school” (or the regular curriculum) about to be back in session starting with the always popular EPT Barcelona stop.

Then again, to paraphrase that Emerson, Lake and Palmer quote on the wall at the Seminole Hard Rock, the traveling circus that is the professional poker tourney circuit is kind of the show that never ends.