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What a week Anna Wroblewski’s had. We’re talking life-overhaul here. Just twenty-one years old, Anna won a satellite to qualify for this week’s $3,000 buy-in event here at Bellagio. It paid off, as she took home the win and $225,000 for her trouble. Now, she’s the chip leader at the World Poker Tour World Championship.
Five feet tall, ninety pounds soaking wet, broke a week ago, Anna may be the real thing. She talks a stream at the table with beers constantly in hand, but that seems to lull opponents into a false sense of security. Then it’s a giggle, a batting of the eyelashes and ‘I’ll take your stack now, than you’. Poker’s been waiting for a dominant woman player, and every time some young woman jumps to an early chip lead, we wonder ‘is she the one?’ This week, Anna’s the target of the speculation.
If her play yesterday was any indication, there’s a chance. She grabbed a massive chip lead early when her nut-flush beat two flopped sets (aces and jacks). She briefly lost that lead to Shannon Shorr when he leapt past her in the standings, but she was back on top of the leaderboard by the end of the night.
Joining her near the top? Shorr, Daniel Alaei, LAPC Champion Eric Hershler and the infamous Marc Goodwin, who is presently embroiled in a controversy with Phil Ivey and Ram Vaswani based around the payment of some massive golf bets. Ivey and Vaswani survived the day also.
Amongst the other survivors were more than a few elite names in a truly elite field. Phil Hellmuth, Barry Greenstein, Gavin Smith, Joe Sebok, Jamie Gold, returning WPT world champions Martin de Knijff and Joe Bartholdi and untold others. In all, there were 304 players at the beginning of the day, with 226 surviving thanks in large part to the T50,000 starting stacks. You get what you pay for; entry was $25,000.
Tomorrow, a recap of what happened on day 1B, when the other half of the field gets it on. JC Tran, Daniel Negreanu, Grinder, Mike Matusow and Chip Reese will be just a few of the big names seeing play. Check back then to see how they did.
Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com
