Big Highs and Lows in the $1K Event
by Jessica on 06.01.09, 2:10 am
Several players found themselves chipless by the end of Level 8 in the $1K NLHE event. David “The Maven” Chicotskygot the last of his short stack in preflop holding Q
J to the other player’s K9. The board ran out 10-6-4-4-X and king high was good enough to win the pot and eliminate David early in the level.
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (pictured left) was the next player to fall. With the blinds at 200/400 ante 50 it folded around to the small blind who completed. Thayer put in a raise for 800 more and the small blind quickly reraised enough to put Rasmussen all-in. Thayer thought a minute before calling the remainder of his chips (between 3K and 4K) and turning up K-Q. His opponent had him in bad shape with A-Q and when the flop came A
J9
, but Rasmussen wasn’t drawing completely dead. Unfortunately for Thayer, there were no miracle cards to come and the turn and river came 2
Q respectively to send him to the rail.
Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke also found himself on the wrong end of an all-in situation. Fricke was faced with a 1.4K bet on a board of 974, and raised to over 4K. With only 5.5K behind, Jimmy was forced to call when his opponent put him all in. Fricke’s J-9 was trailing K9, and with no help from the dealer hit the rail.
We missed the hand, but according to his Twitter Fricke’s tablemate Andrew “tiltyjoker” Lee took a pretty rough beat to get knocked out of the event in the past hour. His tweets explained that he and another player ended up getting it all-in on a K-10-5 board with Lee holding pocket aces to his opponent’s pocket queens. The turn and river came J and then 9 to give his opponent a backdoored straight and send Lee packing.
One player who is faring quite a bit better is JC Tran. His 50K stack is the biggest one we’ve spotted so far, but he doesn’t seem to be entirely satisfied with it. He pulled us over to ask what the biggest stack was and when we explained we thought it was him, he immediately asked how much the Day 1A chipleader had. When he learned it was 130K he looked at the stacks around his table, smiled, and said, “I can’t win 130K here. I’m gonna need a new table.”
Also building a stack is Steve “whitealroker” Bent. During the break we caught up with him, and he told us he recently doubled. According to Bent, he raised from the cutoff with 9s and was called by one player in the blinds. The flop was 7-5-3 and Steve shoved all in after his opponent checked. “I saw him get it in with a low pair before, and I thought he might do it again. WAR was right and his opponent called with wired 4s. Bent faded six outs twice and double to 17K.
Steve “time4badbeat” Wagner (pictured right) is on a heater since relocating to the Amazon Room. Less than an hour after moving, he told us he was dealt KJ in the small blind. The cutoff raised, the button called and Wagner called as well. The flop fell AT7, and Wagner check called a bet from the original raiser after the button folded. The Q turn gave Wagner broadway, and he stealthily check called a bet of 2200, and proceeded to check dark going to the river. The move paid off, and Steve struck gold on the river when the Q spiked. His opponent bet 2500 and Wagner shipped the rest of his stack in the middle. He didn’t get a call, but he showed the royal flush to the table. Wagner is up to 24.6K at break.
Here are some of the most recent chip counts from players as they headed into their last break of the night:
JC Tran - 48K
Steve “time4badbeat” Wagner - 24.6K
Brock “t_soprano” Parker - 18K
Steve “whitealroker” Bent - 17K
Justin “fluffdog” Filtz - 14.2K
Mike “WiscoMurray” Murray - 12K
Bryan Micon - 9K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 3.6K
Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer - 3K
WSOP Event #2: $40K NLHE
With the elimination of Dani “Ansky” Stern in fourth place and Greg Raymer in third place we are now at heads up play between Isaac Haxton and Vitaly Lunkin. Haxton began the match with over a 2 to 1 chip advantage, but Lunkin has since taken over the chip lead and the two are relatively even stacked.
