Dominik Nitsche Leads Day 1A

The South African poker public certainly knows how to have fun. The atmosphere was bordering on nepotism as everyone seemingly knew everyone, and the net result was a compact and bijou Day 1A held in the highest of spirits.

74-players entered and 34 survived 10-hours of play. The process was the same as most major tournaments. There was an early chip leader, and then a player who took control of the event; a rash of challengers towards the end and finally someone emerging from the throng to take the top spot. The early chip leader was Claude Sacks, who according to Dominik Nitsche just won every hand he played – Sacks called this ABC poker. Then Gideon Scheepers turned into a one man wrecking crew to take control of the event. The only South African World Series of Poker bracelet holder, Hugh Todd, and former WSOP Main Event third place finisher, Raymond Rahme, feeling the wrath of the unstoppable Scheepers. The challengers towards the end were Ryan Price, Mauro De Rose and Dominik Nitsche, and it was the German who finished on top after eliminating Claude Sacks in one of the final hands of the day.

Here are the main highlights of Day 1A.

After two levels of bedding in, we had our first piece of drama midway through level three. It centred on the former world champion, Joe Cada, who was eliminated before even getting started. There was not much Cada could do about it after picking up pocket kings at the same time that Evro Psiloyenis picked up pocket aces. That bruising encounter left Cada with just 6,500 chips, and they were soon finding a new home in the stack of Ronit Chamani. Chamani opened with ace-queen, Cada shoved with ace-jack and after Chamani called Cada was sent to his room to take an early shower.

As Joe Cada was heading solemnly out of the door a perky Dominik Nitsche passed him in the opposite direction. Nitsche told us that he was excited to play in the main event after bombing in the high roller, side events and cash games since landing in South Africa.

"Can I stake you in this tournament? Just pull a sickie," Nitsche asked us.

That’s just how great Nitsche thought the value was in this tournament. If Chris Moneymaker didn’t know there was value here before he arrived, it didn’t take him long to find out. Moneymaker raised to 525 in first position and there were two callers before Robbie Sham moved all-in for 4,300 on the button. Moneymaker deliberated before making the call and Chris Convery moved all-in for a little over 30,000. Moneymaker was forced to fold and Convery turned over [As] [Td]. In a land that has elephants we guess the valuation of hand rankings is also much bigger!

Level five saw the emergence of Conrad Coetzer. The Macau cash game regular eliminating two players in an [As] [Ks] v [8c] [8s] v [Ac] [Js] to move him towards the top end of the chip counts. The man holding that top spot was Claude Sacks. Then just before the crowd vanished for the dinner break where culinary delights such as Ostrich neck were waiting to be devoured, we lost our second former world champion. Chris Moneymaker was reduced to just 9,000 chips after losing every flip he had played in [Moneymaker’s words not ours] before his chips went into the middle holding jack-nine-suited. Emmanuel Kistan found ace-queen and five community cards later Moneymaker was out.

It took just one hand after the dinner break for Claude Sacks to create quite some distance between the No.1 and No.2 positions on the leaderboard. For every winner there is a loser, and in this case it was a player simply known as The Bullets who was found to be firing blanks. A classic flip with the pocket nines of Sacks standing the test of time against ace-king. We can only assume with a name like The Bullets that he will be re-entering tomorrow on Day 1B.

(Photo: Claude Sacks)

Before Sacks had even sent a celebratory text to his friends, his lead had gone. Gideon Scheepers removing the stalwarts Hugh Todd and Raymond Rahme to shoot into the lead with 140,000 chips, and just 54-players remaining. Todd was eliminated AA v KK and Rahme was found out after shoving on a 10-high flop holding ace-jack, only to be called by the pocket eights of our chip leader.

(Photo: Gideon Scheepers)

Scheepers maintained that lead deep into the final level despite some intense pressure from Dominik Nitsche, Ryan Price and Mauro De Rose. Nitsche’s rise to prominence was the reason Claude Sacks is not being mentioned in this paragraph. Nitsche bluffing his entire stack on a board of [8x] [4x] [2x] [Ax] holding just [8x] [6x] and Sacks called holding [Ax] [Qx]; a [6x] on the river giving Nitsche a lifeline which he put to good use with a great finish to Day 1A, including the eventual elimination of Sacks.

Day 1B will resume at 14:00 (SAST) and we expect to see WPT Champions Club member McLean Karr, Liv Boeree and $1,000 side-event champion Melanie Weisner amongst others. Make sure you join us at WPT.com for all of the action.