WSOP 2008
Slow Level, Matusow Falls Short
by Court on 10.01.08, 1:04 pm
After a brisk pace of eliminations in the first level brought the field down to just 2 tables, the pace has slowed dramatically, with only one bustout for the whole level. A notable bust it was, in the form of Mike Matusow. Mike moved all in on the flop and was called. At the time Matusow’s jack high was the best hand, but Johnny Lodden had a powerful draw with an open ended straight flush draw. A pair on the turn gave Lodden the lead with Matusow needing a non-spade ten or jack to win the pot and stay alive in the tournament. It didn’t happen and once again Matusow falls just a little short of a WSOP main event title.
Matusow’s (right) elimination from the secondary table leaves 17 players in the field. After a 20 minute break they will be back at the tables to play the 4k / 8k blind level with antes of 1k. The secondary table will be missing the mouth, but still has plenty of interesting characters with Brian “sbrugby” Townsend, Peter “#1Pen” Neff, Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman, Johnny Lodden and Ivan Demidov all at the table. Neff had a card dead level, blinding off about 80k worth of chips and dropping to 250k.
Over at the feature table chip leader John Juanda continues to dominate the show and sucking the chips away from the rest of the players at the table. Daniel Negreanu has dropped to 335k while Justin “Boosted J” Smith is down to 370k, with Soren Kongsgaard also in the low 300’s at the feature table and Brandon Adams is seriously short stacked at 145k. Juanda’s pile of 1.25 million chips is the dominating force going into the third level of play for the day.
Chip Counts:
John Juanda - 1,280,000
Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman - 460,000
Justin “Boosted J” Smith - 370,000
Daniel Negreanu - 335k
Soren Kongsgaard - 303k
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 260k
Brian “sbrugby” Townsend - 150k