September 18 2012, Chad Holloway
On Sunday night, the World Poker Tour Season X continued on Fox Sports Network with Part I of the $100,000 Super High Roller, which took place alongside the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio back in May.
On Day 1 of the event, 26 players, including Phil Galfond, David “Doc” Sands, Justin “Boosted J” Smith, Masa Kagawa, Robert Zeps, Brian Hastings and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, forked over the $100,000 buy-in. Eventually six players were eliminated and took advantage of the reentry – Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Galen Hall, Tom Marchese, Andrew Robl and Cary Katz.
As the day wore on, Sam Trickett joined the action, and Negreanu busted his second buy-in after his 
ran into the 
of Galfond. “Everything went wrong in this 100K for me…not rebuying anymore,” Negreanu tweeted shortly after taking his leave. Others who joined him on the rail throughout the day were Grospellier, Michael Parziale, Robert Zeps and Clemenceau Calixto.
Day 1 ended with 19 players and Justin Bonomo’s stack of 1.433 million leading the way. Registration was open up until the start of Day 2, and that inspired poker pro Sorel Mizzi to give it a shot. Likewise, Calixto opted to give it another go and reentered the tournament, which created a $3.3 million prize pool.
Mizzi’s late registration didn’t go as planned because he busted within an hour of entering, and Dan Shak, Mercier, Katz, Calixto, Sands, Smith and Galfond soon followed him out the door. When Hastings exited in 10th place, the final nine players combined to one table and looked to play down to the official final table of six – though only five were slated to get paid.
, eliminating Smith.Here’s how things stacked up at the start of the final table:
WPT Season X $100,000 Super High Roller Open Final Table
| 1 | Bill Klein | 620,000 (12 BBs) |
| 2 | John Juanda | 1,875,000 (37 BBs) |
| 3 | Tom Marchese | 2,235,000 (44 BBs) |
| 4 | Daniel Perper | 3,415,000 (68 BBs) |
| 5 | Justin Bonomo | 2,105,000 (42 BBs) |
| 6 | Andrew Robl | 3,355,000 (67 BBs) |
Where is JJ?: There was one man mysteriously absent at the start of the final table, and that was six-time WPT finalist John Juanda, who finished runner-up to Gus Hansen in the first-ever WPT event at the Bellagio. “First place is over $1.3 million and the guy’s not even here, it’s just incredible to me, but you do blind the guy off and ante him off, so however long that takes for him to go broke,” Mike Sexton said before choosing Bonomo as his pick to win it.
Playing for Charity: In the very first hand of the broadcast, Tom Marchese opened for 100,000 with 
only to have Daniel Perper three-bet to 240,000. Bill Klein proceeded to moved all in for 615,000 from the big blind with 
.
Interestingly, Klei, the amateur, had pledged to donate 100% of his winnings to charity; what’s more, he had promised to contribute another $100,000 to charity even if he busted in sixth place on the money bubble. As it was, Marchese folded the best hand and Perper called with the worst to put Klein at risk. Klein, who you may recognize from some episodes of High Stakes Poker, was a 68 percent favorite, but that dropped to 60 percent on the 
flop. The 
turn bumped it up to 75 percent, and the 
river gave him a double to 1.41 million on Hand #1.
“I’ve been very blessed in my life. I had cancer in 2003, I’ve been a cancer survivor. Every day is a great day. We’ve been financially blessed. You gotta give back, you gotta get in there and pitch in. You can’t somebody else do it,” Klein said in a side interview.
, and was none too happy when tournament officials informed him that it was a dead hand.The Fashion Report: Mike Sexton believes finalists should look good at the feature table; as such, in our Part I recaps I like to offer a short and sweet fashion report on each player:
Bill Klein: A baby blue polo with a black baseball cap. Definitely not anything special, but somewhat fitting since you got the feeling this amateur would be left black and blue by the professionals at the table. Grade: C+
John Juanda: A brown-and-white squared short-sleeve button-up. Nothing too fancy, but the colors looked good on Juanda. Grade: B
Tom Marchese: A grey t-shirt with what appeared to be black flames rising up. C’mon Tom. Grade: D
Daniel Perper: Slicked back hair with a silky black button-up. It was the sort of shirt you might see at a nightclub, but it looked good. Grade: B+
Justin Bonomo: A similar getup to Perper, Bonomo sported a long-sleeve black button-up, though the sleeves were up and cuffed. It looked pretty sleek. Grade: A-
Andrew Robl: You might think he planned his outfit with Bonomo and Perper, because he was wearing – you guessed it – a black button-up. “He looks a little like a poor man’s Matt Damon, doesn’t he,” said Vince Van Patten. Grade: B+
The Bubble Boy: In Hand #13 of the final table, with the blinds at 25,000/50,000 and a 5,000 ante, Justin Bonomo min-raised from the cutoff with 
only to have John Juanda three-bet to 300,000 from the big blind with 
. Bonomo thought for a few moments before making the call, and then watched Juanda move all in on the 
flop. Bonomo had flopped top pair with top kicker, and he called off his remaining 1.9 million.
Bonomo, who only had an 18 percent chance of survival, looked dejected and stared at the table as the 
turned. That dropped his chances to win down to just 8 percent, but the useless 
peeled off on the river and his day was done. Bonomo composed himself enough to shake hands with the remaining players, but you could tell he was extremely disappointed to be leaving empty handed on the $263,160 money bubble.
“It sucks, there’s not really much other way to put it,” Bonomo told Jessica Welman in his post-elimination interview. “The World Series is coming up, so hopefully I’ll do well there. I can’t complain too much, life is good.”
Tune in Next Week: Part II of the WPT World Championship Super High Roller is set to air on Sunday, Sept. 23, on FSN, so be sure to check your local listings. If by chance you miss it, check back next week for the latest recap of all the action here on PokerNews.
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*Pictures courtesy of World Poker Tour.
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September 17 2012, Matthew Pitt
Day 1b of the World Poker Tour Malta Main Event has drawn to a close after eight action-packed 60-minute levels were completed inside the vast Casino at Portomaso. A number of notables took to the felt during the course of Day 1b, but Jackson Genovesi had out-chipped everyone by the end of the night. In fact, he has more chips than anyone still in the tournament.
Genovesi didn’t have the easiest of tables when Day 1b began because Table 3 was home to Steve van Zadelhoff, World Series of Poker bracelet winner Ronnie Bardah, Fabrice Soulier, and PartyPoker Pro Kara Scott. Genovesi didn’t let the fact he was surrounded by stars faze him, though. If anything, quite the opposite was true.
During the fifth level of play, with blinds at 150/300/25, there was a raise to 700 and four callers before Scott stuck in a raise of her own and made it 2,300 to play from the small blind. Both Bardah and Genovesi made the call, and the dealer fanned out the 
flop. Scott continued her aggression and led out for 5,000 only to see Bardah raise to 18,000. Genovesi then flat-called Bardah’s raise, Scott also called, and action was three-handed to the 
turn.
“What is going on in this hand?” shouted Bardah as he looked up to the heavens, “You just flat 18k?” he motioned to Genovesi, “I have been in some tough spots before, but this is one of the toughest…I have put over 20,000 of my chips into this pot and I have to fold…I have outs too,” said Bardah before finally folding his hand. Genovesi then pretended to fold and the whole table burst into raptures and laughter at the reaction on Bardah’s face. Genovesi pulled his cards back and called.
Scott showed 
and needed a queen or a seven to survive because Genovesi held 
for the nut flush. The 
was not one of Scott’s outs and she headed to the sidelines while Genovesi became the new chip leader with 110,000 chips and from that moment, the young Italian never looked back.
For Bardah’s take on the hand, check out this video.
As mentioned, among the 105 entries were some of poker’s most familiar names and some of those who made it through with chip stacks intact included Giovanni Rizzo (95,800), Alessio Isaia (77,500), Erik Cajelais (74,800), Ilan Boujenah (62,100), Jason Mercier (56,600) and Fabrice Soulier (49,500). Vanessa Selbst (29,500), Tony G (17,600), Andrew Badecker (15,700), Marvin Rettenmaier (13,375) and Anton Wigg (12,700) also made it through but will have a little more work to do when play restarts.
Play resumes at 1300 CET (0400 PDT), and we are told the plan is to play between five and six 90-minute levels, depending on how quickly the field thins early on. The PokerNews Live Reporting team will be there to bring you all of the action as it unfolds.
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