300… Almost
by Court on 08.22.09, 9:33 pm
The final numbers at the Bike tallied up to only 279 entrants, almost 100 players short of a year ago and well shy of the field sizes from a few years back. Last year John Phan defeated a field of 373 players, but this year he and all the other defending Legends of Poker champions declined to enter the event. Amit “Amak316″ Makhija is the closest thing to a defending champion in the field with his runner up finish last year. He is already working the short stack, grinding it out hoping to be able to chip up by days end.
Matt “mcmatto” Affleck (right) has picked up a few pots. In one he was up against Allen Cunningham who called a 800 chip bet from Affleck on the turn with the board showing Q
52
A
. Matt’s continued aggression on the 3 river won the pot when Cunningham folded to his 2,400 chip bet. A larger pot went Affleck’s way when he picked off a bluff. On the AT4 board it was checked to Matt and he bet 900. He was then raised to 3,500 which he called. With the 5 turn both players checked and on the 4 river Matt was faced with a 5k chip bet as his opponent tossed a lone blue chip into the pot. Matt thought for a few moments, reluctantly putting a blue chip of his own in the pot to make the call. “You’re good” the other player said, hesitant to show his hand. Matt didn’t force him into tabling his hand and showed his AK
to win the pot.
At another table Shannon Shorr ran into a flopped straight on a 876 board. The 3-way action checked on the flop and then Shorr bet 1,700 on the Q turn and one player called. With the 3 river Shorr checked and the other player bet 4k. Shannon called and both players sat on their hands. After a significant pause the other player in the pot turned over his 95 for the straight, prompting Shannon to hold onto his cards face down for a moment while he chided the other player for not exposing his hand when he was called. After telling the player there was “no need to showboat” Shannon mucked his hand. Shorr’s stack was around 15k at the end of the 2nd level of play.
David “DocSands” Sands (left)had to argue with a dealer and prevent her from taking his cards in a situation where the pot was supposed to be split but the dealer thought she should push it to only one player. With two aces coming on the board along with a ten and a nine David had A-2 and the other player at showdown had A-6. Both players were playing three aces and the T-9 that was on board but the dealer was insistent that the 6 played. After reaching to grab David’s cards, which he firmly held onto as he and the table tried to explain it was a split pot. Sands finally told the dealer to push up the cards from the board that played until she either finally understood or just surrendered since everyone at the table kept telling her it was a chopped pot. With a look of aggravation and amazement on his face Sands took his half of the small pot.
James “mig.com” Mackey and Randal “RandALLin” Flowers both have nice stacks of around 40k and are in comfortable shape going into the third level of the day and blinds of 150 / 300. Antes kick in on the fourth level of play.
Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, Eric “Basebaldy” Baldwin and Mohsin “ChicagoCards1″ Charania join Makhija are still short stacked along with Makhija, though Charania was able to chip up to around 20k. Baldwin still has around 14k and Jimmy is at 15k. Kevin “Bel0WaB0Ve” Saul was among the short stacks but won a decent pot when he bet 4,500 on a board of K645 board with less than 10k behind. The other player folded and Kevin won the pot and has continued to chip up since, getting back above the 30k starting stack. Adam “A_Junglen” Junglen fell to under 8k when his striaight was ousted by a higher straight.
