WSOP Main Event: PokerStars--It's Everywhere

by CJ Hoyt

You can't walk five feet on the tournament floor without running into a PokerStars qualifier. They say there's about 1600 of them, but if that's true, then it seems like they're all playing today.

At Table 158, it's Phillip "2a472" Bass and Ray "Chips7911" Johnston. At Table 147, it's Mike Edens and Swedish qualifier Niclas "Nicklas70" Gustafsson. At Table 135, it's Ariel Schneller and Ted "$urebet" Spencer. Ariel already took down a monster 10K pot when his QT outflopped AQ. And Ted is more than free-rolling at this point. Not only did it cost him just $160 to win his seat in a Double Shootout, but when he arrived, he won another seat and sold it for $10,300.

Table 146 is a bit crowded, with Travis "travdawgks" Garrod, Robert Natividad, Edward "Xerxes757" Ihre and Brian "Showbizzzz" Gass. But the table to watch is definitely 123.

In Seat 1, it's Robert "Pops 528" Matos. In Seat 2, it's Harinam "Gyr1" Khalsa. In Seat 3, it's Matt Vogel. Sitting down in seat 4 is Emad Tahtouh. In Seat 6, it's Tony "Irishlust" Mucci. In Seat 7, it's Jason "Goonboy" Hahn. And in Seat 9, it's Seth Cohen.

Tony and Jason don't have a whole lot riding on this, except for the $10 million+ top prize. After all, they didn't spend a dime to get here. They used their Frequent Player Points to satellite their way into the Main Event. Now THAT'S a good deal.