He came. He saw. He almost got a seat?
Instagram King Dan Bilzerian rolled into the World Series of Poker around 9:30 p.m. Thursday looking to play high-stakes No-Limit Hold’em in the brand-new King’s Casino cash game section at the Rio.
There was a rumor floating around that Bilzerian was going to play King’s Casino founder Leon Tsoukernik heads-up at $500/$1000.
Tsoukernik just won $1.8m for coming in fourth place in the Super High Roller Bowl so he could certainly afford to splash around with Bilzerian.
Tony G, Colman Join the Action
There were a number of pros floating around the King’s Casino game area including Tony G, Martin Kabrhel and Dan Colman.
Colman seemed to be making a point that you couldn’t close off a game that was open to the public.
The waiting list for $500/$1,000 initially read Dan Colman, Antonio Esfandiari, Brandon Steven, Brian Rast, Igor Kurganov and Ben (Lamb?) as well as the aforementioned Tsoukernik, Tony G and Kabrhel.
Players milled around for about an hour with no progress being made. By this point Bilzerian and his entourage headed to a back room to wait for organizers to clear up what was going on.
Mike Sexton, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and a few others had entered the room simply see what was going on.
Finally at around 10:15 p.m. WSOP VP Jack Effel decided to start the game with the players who were on the original list. Anyone else could join at a later stage.
That meant the first hand of $500/$1000 was finally dealt at approximately 10:30 p.m. with Esfandiari, Tony G, Tsoukernik and Steven at the table.
Bilzerian Leaves Without Playing
At that time Bilzerian headed for the exit with his crew. It wasn’t clear if he was going to return to the game later or if he was done for the evening. At the time this article was published Bilzerian had not returned.
Bilzerian, who cashed in the 2009 WSOP Main Event, has said in the past that he doesn’t play the WSOP because he doesn’t like the slow nature of tournaments. Cash games are a different story, however, and he’s allegedly hosted some massive private games in the past.
Here’s a collection of photos from the King’s Casino cash game area from the time that Bilzerian entered the building to when he left at close to 11 p.m.:
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