Halfway Home: Mid-Day 1 Update

With seven levels schedule for today, Day 1 of the Super High Roller Bowl is halfway in the books and through three and a half levels, some interesting story lines have developed. While the action is live streamed, for free through Day 1, on PokerGO and while PokerNews is handling the live reporting end of things for the entirety of the event, Poker Central will be keeping you up to date as well.

Two-For-One

Three players have hit the rail through the first few hours of play and Haralabos Voulgaris was the first two go early in Level 2. Voulgaris tangled with Cary Katz, who turned a straight to turn the Canadian to the door and early in the next period, John Juanda was eliminated by Fedor Holz. The German rivered a flush against Juanda’s flopped top pair and then most recently, Ben Tollerene hit the rail. That means one non-pro (Voulgaris) and two professionals (Juanda and Tollerene) have fallen and dropped the field to 53 players.

Bonomo Getting Bigger

Coming back from the third break of the day, a few players had pushed themselves near the half-million chip mark but Justin Bonomo was behind the biggest stack in the room. Bonomo seemed extremely happy with his table draw last night and has been on a heater over the last few days. Bonomo won the ARIA $10K High Roller at the beginning of the week and then chopped the $50K Super High Roller on Thursday. Clearly, he’s carrying some momentum into the Super High Roller Bowl, as he’s currently king of the hill.

Only Getting Tougher

We mentioned that Justin Bonomo seemed happy about his table draw but in a field stacked with talent, are there actually any good seats in the building? Daniel Negreanu has Jason Mercier and Tom Marchese, pictured above, to his left, Brian Rast has to deal with Jake Schindler, Scott Seiver, Jason Koon and Antonio Esfandiari, and defending champion Rainer Kempe is seated around Dan Smith, Andrew Robl and Matt Berkey. As the field continues to thin, these lineups aren’t going to get easier, they are only going to get tougher. If that is even possible…

Lights, Camera, Hold the Action

The fans at home likely love that the action halts at the outer tables when there is an all-in encounter but the air is taken out of the room every time a dealer yells, “All-in and a call.” It’s impossible to miss and once the rest of the field figures out where the all-in is taking place, most of them post up to sweat the action. Everyone then waits for the camera crews to get in place and a few minutes later, the at-risk player can finally breathe a sigh of relief, if they survive. As if being all-in for your tournament life in the biggest event of the year isn’t torturous enough…

Follow all of the Super High Roller Bowl on PokerGO, with Day 1 currently streaming for free.