There have been a lot of people in Las Vegas this week getting weird feelings. It’s felt like a tremor deep in their bones. Though the vast majority have subsequently discovered it to be an earthquake, it was something different for Albert Yzaguirre.
“Something told me to play the Main Event,” Yzaguirre said at around 11:05am this morning, clutching his $10,000 buy-in ticket. “I just had this weird feeling about the Main Event.”
So it was that, having touched down in Vegas at 6pm last night, he abandoned plans only to play some PLO today and registered for the biggest tournament on the World Series of Poker (WSOP) schedule. In so doing, he became officially the last player in the late registration line, and the last player to pay the $10,000 to join the party. Though it will take some time for the tournament officials to make player numbers official, Yzaguirre will be the last name on their chronological list of entrants.
“My buddy last year won this, John Cynn,” Yzaguirre said, offering another nice synchronicity. The last player standing last year is a friend of the last player to register this time. It’s not clear what this might portend, but it certainly has the makings of something.
“Let’s make this one happen,” Yzaguirre added as he scurried to his seat. He’s the guy with the Colts cap, T-shirt and tattoo on his calf out on table 108 in the Pavilion Room. That means he is covered in horseshoes too, another good sign.
(Note: at time of writing, the 8am mega satellite is still running, with four seats to the Main Event guaranteed. Whichever four players qualify from that will take their seats after Yzaguirre, but their money is already in the cage.)
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With 60,000 chips, and blinds re-starting today at 400/800, Yzaguirre still has absolutely ample play. In fact, there are a couple of tables in the tournament field today where a stack of about 70,000 represents the table chip lead. Had Yzaguirre been drawn to table 498 in the Amazon Room, for instance, he would have been fourth in chips, with only 9,600 fewer than the table chip leader Brad Tucker.
Phil Hellmuth
One other late arrival today is Phil Hellmuth, who has only just arrived back in Las Vegas after a lavish vacation but quickly hot-footed it to the Main Event stage.
The poker brat missed out on the chance to add to his 16-bracelet haul through much of the rest of the Series this year, but wouldn’t miss the Main.
He wired his money ahead of time and his chips were in play from the start of today, and now he is here on one of the secondary feature tables.
Team PokerStars Pro Leo Fernandez is also on a feature table today, for the second time. He spent all of Day 1C on the main stage, so he’ll be getting a lot of good TV time for his Red Spade patch. Good for Leo.
Leo Fernandez: Team Pro on the TV table again
WSOP photography by PokerPhotoArchive