Spain Better At Poker Than Soccer

While his native Spain was throttled by France in the World Cup–which remains the only event left where you’ll still hear the phrase "throttled by France" used–Carlos Mortensen, um, throttled the competition on Day 1 of the 2006 WSOP’s first major tournament, the $1,500 no limit hold’em Event #2.

Mortensen ended the day stacked around 127,000. The Spaniard’s play was a thing of beauty on par with the beautiful Spanish model Elsa Pataky (at right). You might ask yourself, or us, how can two things of beauty be so beautiful yet…so different? To which we’d say, “Just appreciate the beauty that God hath created in all of its forms.”

Mortensen’s nearest competitor, stacked at 101,000, is Ali Zargari, who if he was American we’d assume he was a hot chick, much like Ali Larter, but since he’s not we assume he’s a terrorist*, much like Ali Saed Bin Ali El-Hoorie or Ali Atwa.

Of the record 2,776 who started play (outnumbering last year’s WSOP record for a non-main event), only 122 remain. The $3,789,240 prize pool is an event #2 record, and first place will cash a record $757,839. Play resumes at 2pm (PST), not a record, but Phil Hellmuth tied Men the Master’s record by guaranteeing himself a 49th all-time WSOP cash. Hellmuth is currently stacked at 30,000.

Other notabales still stacked include: David "Devil Fish" Ulliott – 90,000, Erik Seidel – 80,000, John Bonetti – 68,000, Greg Raymer – 38,000, Adam Friedman – 36,000, Phil Gordon – 33,000, David Pham – 30,000, Eric “Efro” Froelich – 29,000, Jennifer Harman – 28,000, Al Krux – 27,000, Tuan Le – 26,400, Bill Gazes – 26,000 and Paul Darden – 22,000. Nobody else remaining is of any note**.

Event #3 of the 2006 World Series of Poker, the $1500 Pot-Limit Hold’em tournament, starts at noon today, Vegas time. Last year, Thom Werthmann captured the $1500 pot-limit hold‚Äôem title, beating out 5-time WSOP bracelet winner Layne Flack in a see-saw heads up battle.

And justincase you’re a mother/father/brother/sister/aunt/uncle/cousin or really really good friend of someone playing in the Casino Employee tournament, it was won by Chris Gros who banked $127,616.

A couple more pics of Elsa after the jump…

*Kidding…don’t bomb us.

** Technically not true. Everybody is of some note in some way, although apparently you’re nobody until somebody loves you.