Black Belt Blog: Day 2A - Last Level Massacre

With five players already through to Day 3, and another five testing their luck today in Day 2B, you'd expect morale to be sky high at the Black Belt Poker mansion. However, the journey home felt like a funeral march as the hearse escorted the victims of a last level massacre that left the Vegas 11 licking their collective wounds.

The entire team had, at one stage during the day, surpassed the century mark, but only one returned with six figures next to his name.

Captain Channing had been more active than a Vegas hooker, on top of his game and confident mood, but lost all momentum and endured a nightmare final few levels as his stack continued to plummet. In the final hour, he lost a battle of the blinds with Chance Kornuth who pushed all in for 20 big blinds. On this occasion, jack-high > ace-high and although he managed to quadruple his bowl of rice, Neil bagged up a disappointing 16,400.

As Neil regaled the car with the tale of the tape, Jamie Burland barely said a word from the front seat he'd shotgunned. He'd progressed from his start-of-day stack, but after reaching the dizzy heights of 140,000, you could tell he was devastated to have dropped all the way back down to his tournament starting stack of 30,000. Not even a game of FIFA could soothe the wounds.

Ben Meredith was equally flustered with 54,000: "Worst four hours of live poker I've had a in long time - card dead and missed everything." In the vastness of the Amazon Room, he ended up on a table with best friend Sam Razavi, who was equally dejected, despite his 97,000. After all, he had been as high as 155,000.

Only David Docherty was entitled to smile, playing out of his skin to reach a final count of 224,900. His cap bore the slogan: "Float like a butterfly,"and he followed that mantra to the letter. In one key hand, he flat-called a cold-four-bet with 9d-8d, and then fired 17,600 on the Kd-T-5c after it had been checked to him. The aggressor relenquished his hand and David showed an 8.

Of course, every funeral has to have a daisy-pusher; we had five. The first man to drop was Tristan McDonald. He arrived with a short stack and was unable to out-flip 8-8 with A-J. Then we lost Kevin Williams, who moved all in with 6c-5c on a 2-7c-8-8c board but couldn't improve against A-8. Black Belt Poker Academy Alex Rousso departed at the fina hour, losing most of his stack with kings versus jacks. Then, right at the death, Jerome Bradpiece bit dust, never fully recovering from an earlier 'flip (A-T versus 9-9) and, in his own words, "murdering the rest."

Gareth Alder followed suit. A Green Belt in the Belt-Up Rewards System, he receives monthly 1-1 Enlightenment mentoring sessions, and has been blogging about his progress on the site. Unfortunately, we can't teach him to dodge bad beats as he crashed out with 9-9 versus K-4. It happened the painful way: 4 on the flop... and a 4 on the river.

As Jimmy Greaves once said, "It's a funny ol' game," and at the start of the day, and even the tournament, having five players reach Day 3 in tact would have succeeded expectations. But given the story of the day, nobody was singing a happy song. The bottom line, however, is they're still alive, and as long as you have a chip and a chair, you're still in with a chance of fulfilling the dream.

Chasing that goal today in Day 2B are our qualifiers Sean Fennessey, Greg Moore, Jeremy Rickard and WSOP Warrior Master League winner Hasmukh Khodiyara, as well as World Heads-Up Champion Nik Persaud. If they survive, they'll join the five Vegas 11 members on Thursday for Day 3 when you'll be able to follow their progress via our Vegas tab/page.

Alex Rousso -- eliminated
Ben Meredith -- 54,400
David Docherty -- 224,900
Gareth Alder -- eliminated
Jamie Burland -- 30,000
Jerome Bradpiece -- eliminated
Kevin Williams -- eliminated
Neil Channing -- 14,400
Sam Razavi -- 97,000
Tristan McDonald -- eliminated