Online Poker Star Darryll Fish Leads WPT Five Diamond After Day 1
After a month-long hiatus, the World Poker Tour (WPT) returned to action on Monday with the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. A total of 292 players entered, with registration still open on Day 2, and all but 57 survived the day.
Darryll “DFish” Fish leads the pack after one day of play in Las Vegas, holding a stack of 236,000, a slight lead over the second place total of Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, one of the top minds in poker. Turner holds 227,000 chips and will headline Table 45 on Tuesday, where a cast that includes Chad “lilholdem954” Batista, Absolute Poker pro Mark Seif, and Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby will join him.
Fish made waves on Monday by knocking out defending WPT Five Diamond champion David “Chino” Rheem. Rheem found himself all-in on a flop of 7-5-3 with two hearts holding 6-4 for the stone cold nuts. Fish had pocket threes for bottom set and, rooting for the board to pair to make a full house, watched as the turn came another seven. Fish’s stack grew to over 150,000 after all was said and done in the hand and Rheem hit the rails. Rheem was a member of the inaugural World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Nine in a final table won by Danish poker pro Peter Eastgate.
Fish has been on a tear online, winning an event held during the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) in September for well over $200,000. In April, he won the challenging Full Tilt Poker $1K Monday to the tune of $81,000 and three months later found the winner’s circle in the Daily Eighty Grand on PokerStars. Another online poker sensation, Billy “Patrolman35” Kopp, sits in fourth place at the Bellagio with a chip stack of 201,000. Here’s a look at the rather eclectic top ten in the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic after Day 1:
1. Darryl “DFish” Fish - 236,625
2. Jon “PearlJammer” Turner - 227,325
3. David Woo - 205,000
4. Billy “Patrolman35” Kopp - 201,325
5. Carlos Mortensen - 194,525
6. Antonio Esfandiari - 184,225
7. Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll - 184,025
8. Justin Tazelaar - 169,200
9. Nashaat Antonious - 164,100
10. David “Viffer” Peat - 160,000
Players can register through the midway point on Day 2, so the final attendance figure remains up in the air. As it stands now, however, the field size is off by a staggering 41% from last year’s tally of 497, which ended with Rheem defeating Justin Young for the title in the $15,000 buy-in tournament for $1.5 million. Coverage found on the official website of the WPT adds, “This tournament has more late registrants than most.”
Kopp sent crowd favorite Daniel Negreanu to the rails with pocket jacks against pocket tens. The flop fell J-9-8, giving Kopp top set and Negreanu an open-ended straight draw, but the turn and river bricked out for the PokerStars pro and sent him packing. Also eliminated on Monday was Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little, a former Player of the Year on the WPT circuit. Little flopped top two pair on a board of 9-7-3 with two hearts, but Soheil Shamseddin’s K-9 of hearts found a flush. The hand bumped Shamseddin’s stack to 95,000 and he ended the day with 120,000, good for 26th place. Other notable names in the top 50 on the leaderboard after Day 1 include:
11. David Benyamine – 157,000
12. Eric “Rizen” Lynch – 154,000
16. Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke – 145,000
24. Kenna James – 121,000
30. “Miami” John Cernuto – 117,000
33. Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin – 112,000
41. Cornel Andrew Cimpan – 107,000
44. Gavin Smith – 106,000
45. Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire – 105,000
When play concluded on Day 1, blinds were 300-600 with a 50 chip ante. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT coverage from the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic.
