Home Run for Baldwin
by Brett on 06.13.08, 2:33 am
It might translate better to a single and a three-base error in baseball terminology, but Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin is pleased with the result regardless. Here’s how the enormous pot in the $5K NLHE Event went down: A player under the gun raised to 24K at 4K/8K blinds and Baldwin (pictured left) shoved in middle position for 170K. Thanhdat Tran then pushed his last 70K into the middle and it folded around to Ben Sprengers in the small blind, who called and had all players covered. The under-the-gun player folded and all hands were revealed:
Baldwin - 7
5
Tran - Q
Q
Sprengers - JJ
The 74
2 flop gave a little hope to Balwin’s seemingly irreparable hand, and then the remaining players at every table gathered to watch the 7 peel off on the turn to put Baldwin in the lead. The meaningless 8 came on the river and a pot of 440K was sent to Baldwin, who is now up to over 500K after eliminating Jorryt Van Hoof a few hands later.
Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet (pictured right) and Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman have also been doing work as the field has thinned down to 23. Van Fleet took a huge pot off of Eli Elezra to build his stack to over 400K. On a flop of J65, Elezra checked to Van Fleet, who bet 26K. Elezra then raised to 57K and Van Fleet called. Eli led out for 50K when the 7 appeared on the turn and Van Fleet called. The river brought the T and Elezra asked for a count of Van Fleet’s chips. Jon counted out 84K and Elezra checked after a minute of thought. Van Fleet then moved all in and four minutes passed while Elezra figured out his next play. Eventually he called the clock on himself, which got a laugh from several onlookers, and Eli folded as the tournament director got down to four seconds left on the clock.
Freeman recently eliminated Mark Radoja when his AQ out flopped the QQ of Radoja, sending him home in 25th.
Adam “Roothlus” Levy was knocked out of the event in 24th place and now the remaining 23 players are set to play down to the final nine tonight in anticipation of tomorrow’s final table. The winner will pick up a hefty $755,891.
In an unrelated story, we just caught Men “The Master” Nguyen buying five bags of beef jerky in the Poker Cafe. We’ll keep you updated on his condition.
