When I wrote yesterday “get ready for a wild Sunday” I was speaking more about the action at the Rio, but as it turns out Sunday was indeed a wild one, with controversies in multiple events including a massive fail on the part of the WSOP. Here is a look at the wild-ride that was Sunday at the 2012 WSOP.

Limping your button in heads-up play

No, this isn’t a going to be a strategy column, this was the strategy employed by Warwick Mirzikinian in the Heads-Up matches during the $5k Mix-Max event. Mirzikinian employed this strategy (blind-open-limping his button) in his win against Marvin Rettenmaier in the quarter-finals, he then nearly beat Aubin Cazals with the same strategy in the semi-finals! His unorthodox play was one of the most talked about happening at the WSOP yesterday, but it wasn’t the only one as you will see…

Joe Cheong makes finals in $5k Mix-Max; puts WSOP on blast

2010 November Niner Joseph Cheong made fairly quick work of his semi-final opponent in Sunday, but the Cazals vs. Mirzikinian match lasted a further six hours. By the time the two finalists were ready to play they realized it would be nearly impossible to get the match in before the 10-level rule was called into play. The two decided to postpone the finals, but their ideas were quickly squashed by the WSOP, which was probably the right decision considering what the two poker players had come up with for a solution!

Cheong and Cazals wanted to delay the match until Tuesday, but the WSOP stepped in and said wither play tonight, or come back tomorrow at 11, 12, or 1. The two eventually settled on Noon, but Cheong decided to put the WSOP on blast, telling pokernews.com they were “all about the money.” A comment I still don’t understand.

It’s a reentry tournament not a rebuy tournament

Event #9 is the only 2012 WSOP event using a reentry format and after Sunday this is probably a good thing! Somehow 11 people were allowed to reenter the tournament twice on Sunday even though the format only allowed a single reentry for players who busted on Day 1a to play Day 1b. Among the players who reentered twice was WPT winner Will Failla who apologized, saying he thought there was reentry for the first four levels of the day.

This controversy will likely last multiple days, and Harrah’s and the 11 players who reentered have a lot to answer for, honest mistake or not.

Largest $1,500 NLHE field since 2008

With all of the reentry hubbub the fact that the 3,404 entries was the most in a $1,500 NLHE event since 2008 kind of got lost in the shuffle. As satisfying as the final number is, it should be pointed out that it took a second starting day and the now-popular reentry structure to get to this number.

Tags: Cazals, Controversies, Marvin, Match, Mix Max, Niner, Notebook, Opponent, poker players, Quarter Finals, Rettenmaier, Right Decision, Rio, Semi Finals, Six Hours, Strategy Column, Warwick, Wild One, Wild Ride, WSOP

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2012 at 7:19 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.