Hustler Casino Live's popular livestream show is taking a brief break while some of its stars are busy testing out tournament poker in the 2022 World Series of Poker Main Event. And many of them will enter Day 2 on Thursday or Friday with a healthy stack, including the show's co-founder, Ryan Feldman.
But no one from the popular livestreamed cash game show is off to a hotter start than "Wes Side" Wesley Fei, who turned his Day 1a starting stack of 60,000 all the way up to 300,000 before the session concluded, putting him among the chip leaders in the entire tournament.
Building a Show and a Stack
Hustler Casino Live, a production from within the Hustler Casino in Los Angeles, first launched almost exactly one year ago. The Live at the Bike rival show gained immediate notoriety and then exploded last October when Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan showed up for two weekend streams. With over 145,000 YouTube subscribers already, the sky is the limit for the show. Feldman spoke with PokerNews' Sarah Herring during a Day 1 break to reveal a few players he'd eventually love to get on HCL one day.
Feldman, along with his partner Nick Vertucci, both of whom played key roles in the previous Live at the Bike success, are doing more than just building a poker show. This week, they're building stacks in the WSOP Main Event.
Feldman bagged 244,000 on Day 1, four times his starting stack, and will come back to more than 300 big blinds for the Day 2abc session on Thursday. Vertucci didn't have quite as much success on Day 1d, but he still finished with a healthy stack of 108,900 and is in great shape.
Both HCL producers also compete on stream quite often along with the occasional commentary duties. The show's fans often call Vertucci a "nit" due to his tight image at the table. Hence, why he's sometimes referred to as "Nitucci." Feldman, however, told Herring that his business partner's nitty image is a bit exaggerated.
Feldman said it "would be very big for sure" for the show if he or one of the other regs ran deep in the WSOP Main Event.
You Can't Stop Wesley, You Can Only Hope to Contain Him
Fei, who is more known as just "Wesley" on HCL's streams, is one of poker's newest entertaining characters. He began playing poker less than six months ago. The Chinese born crypto millionaire plays loose and has quickly become a fan favorite on livestreams.
During the Day 1a session, he stacked chips from start to finish and trailed just one player at the end, Cedrric Trevino (317,800), by a small margin.
"Wes Side Wesley" could run into some of his regular opponents on Hustler Casino Live on Day 2 or later in the Main Event. Commentator David Tuchman finished with more than twice his starting stack (140,900). Francisco Fragoso bagged 86,100 and is off to a strong start. Marc Goone, who won a double-up on the second hand with aces beating kings, fell back a bit from his early start, but still ended with 61,200.
Hustler commentator Kyle Ravreby, aka "RaverPoker," couldn't get much going on Day 1, but he survived and advanced with 34,900, almost exactly where Koray Aldemir, the defending champion, ended Day 1 last year.
Other Hustler Casino Live stars advancing to Day 2 of the WSOP Main Event include Ziao "Zeo" Guo (38500), Stanley Tang (37,400), and Alan Keating (15,000). Not everyone from the show was fortunate enough to make it past the first session in poker's world championship event, however. Commentator "DGAF" was a Day 1 exit.
