The Empire Mercier Stack
by Jessica on 06.05.09, 10:41 pm
The Jason Mercier Chip Tower located in the Amazon room has just been revamped.
In the $2K NLHE event Mercier was moved to Pat “BigRed0000″ Stemper’s table during the past level and each possessed one of the biggest chip stacks in the room. That didn’t last long.
With the blinds at 1.2K/2.4K Mercier raised to 5.9K from under the gun and Stemper reraised to 14.8K total. It folded back around to Mercier who 4-bet to 39.1K total and Stemper moved all-in having Jason’s remaining 140K stack covered. Mercier called with A
K, which had Pat’s K-J in bad shape. The Q-4-3 flop changed nothing, but the jack on the turn left Mercier drawing slim. The river was one of Jason’s few outs — a ten to give him a straight, the pot, and a monstrous 350K chip stack. Stemper is still in with 33K going into the diner break.
We last reported Jon “FatalError” Aguiar with 13K just as the bubble burst. He had since built it up to over 110K before losing a big pot to Jason Gray.
A player in the hijack raised to 6K and Aguiar reraised to 16.5K from the cutoff. Action folded around to Gray in the big blind and he moved all in for 46.7K. The original raiser folded and Aguiar shook his head. “I don’t want to call but I have to.”
Aguiar put the remaining 30K in and found that his 9
9 was in bad shape against Gray’s QQ. The board ran out K
5227 and Gray increased his stack to over 100K. Aguiar was left with 67K, but has almost tripled his stack before the break.
Ryan “late_entry” Gentry and Kevin “bukowski101″ McColgan were big movers in the past level. Gentry (pictured left), now seated at Table 66 in the Amazon Room, raised to 7K in middle position and the cutoff called. Both players checked an A
83 flop and the turn brought the T. Gentry bet 7K and his opponent called. The river was the 9 and Gentry led out for 10K. The other player quickly called and flipped over AQ, but Gentry’s AK was good and he increased his stack to 145K.
McColgan got involved in a preflop war that ended up being very rewarding. With blinds at 1K/2K, the chip leader at the table raised to 5.5K from middle position and McCoglan raised to 17K. The big blind pushed all in for 62K total and the original raiser took some time before folding. McColgan went into the tank before deciding to call with QQ. The big blind revealed JJ and a massive pot was on the line.
The QT9 gave his opponent a little more hope, but the 5 and 7 hit the turn and river, sending a pot of 135K over to McColgan.
We also heard that Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim, who had around 60K, got his chips in preflop with pocket jacks against a player’s pocket tens but the flop brought quads for his opponent. Hakim walked away with $4,523.
Players have gone on their dinner break and will return at 7:48 PT. With the average stack currently at 97K, here’s how the remaining P5ers stand with 102 still in the field:
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier – 350K
Jon “FatalError” Aguiar – 180K
Kenny “hixx” Hicks – 158K
Ryan “late_entry” Gentry – 145K
Kevin “bukowski101″ McColgan – 140K
Jason “JAKoon1985″ Koon – 125K
Tyler “tydean” Smith – 120K
Jason Gray – 113K
Scott “stpauli111″ Hall – 92K
Eric “white_mamba” Ladny – 91K
Kyle “kwob20″ Bowker – 55K
Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka – 50K
Pat “BigRed0000″ Stemper – 33K
WSOP Event #13: $2.5K NLHE
Alright, usually I don’t like to report hearsay but I had too many people in the $2.5K NLHE event report interesting stories to me about themselves or their friends, so for this post, I am going to assume the role of resident Gossip Girl and fill y’all in on what I’ve heard in the past hour or two.
We missed Justin “lockdownpokah” Allen’s bustout hand, but his good friend Ryan “gutshtallin” Welch filled us in on an unfortunate situation that left Justin heading for the rail insead of heading up the leaderboard. Allen (pictured right)raised from under the gun and it folded around to the player in the small blind, who didn’t see Justin’s raise when he announced “raise.” The player was informed by the dealer that his verbal declaration was binding and he elected to raise the minimum. Allen, who started the hand with around 8K, 4-bet to 4K total–around half his stack–and the small blind called. The flop came down ace high and the small blind checked to Justin who told Ryan he felt pot committed to move all-in. The other player called and tabled A-5, which bested Justin’s pocket kings. The turn and the river were no help to Allen and he was eliminated.
The next tidbit I have came from the horse’s mouth himself and by horse I mean Brent “BHanks11″ Hanks. He was dejected after losing a 50K pot in the following hand: With the blinds at 150/300 ante 25 Hanks raised under the gun holding J-10. It folded around to the woman in the small blind who had just won a rather substantial pot and she called. The small blind checked the K-Q-8 flop and Brent bet 900. The other player raised 2K more and Brent called. The ace on the turn made Hanks his Broadway straight, so when his opponent checked again he fired 3.9K into the 10K pot and the small blind moved all-in having Brent’s remaining 20K or so covered. He called, she showed A-K, an ace spiked on the river to fill her up and Brent was eliminated.
So then Brent decides to go check on his roomie and friend Brandon “bgitty” Garrity and he busts shortly after Hanks arrives at the table. “I’m a dark cloud of doom,” Brent said. “I need to get out of here,” he added as he and Brandon headed for the door.
This last hand I actually managed to witness myself, but I failed to catch the preflop action. What I did see was a three way all-in involving John “JRD312″ Dolan (pictured left) on a 2-3-5 with two spades flop. Here is what everyone held:
Dolan: QT for the queen high flush draw
Opponent 1: 4-6 for a flopped straight
Opponent 2: 5-5 for top set.
The straight managed to hold, but since Dolan was the biggest stack involved in the hand he still had 1K to work with–approximately three big blinds. He tried his best to double up, but he was eliminated just a few minutes later. Other people joining him on the rail during Levels 5 and 6 were Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista, Court Harrington, and Mark “pghfan987″ Busch.
The $2.5K event is now on dinner break and will resume play around 8:15PM PT. Here are some chip counts we spotted as play wound down:
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 52K
Justin “jurollo” Rollo - 40K
Alex Keating - 37K
Frank “Frank1the1Tank” Calo - 32K (pictured right)
Joe Sebok - 28.5K
Ryan “gutshtallin” Welch - 26K
Scott “sctrojans” Freeman - 26K
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar - 20K
Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski - 19K
Justin “looshle” Pechie - 19K
Darren Elias - 16.5K
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 15K
Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant - 15K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 12.5K
Shaun Deeb - 11K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 11K
Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier - 10.5K
Jamie “TheNew” Robbins - 10K
Devin “tranquilchaos” Porter - 9K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 8.5K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 8.5K
Joe “ender555″ Ebanks - 7.5K
Carter “ckingusc” King - 6.6K
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 6K
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout - 5.5K
