ODwyer Active Early
by Court on 12.19.09, 9:27 pm
Before play started today Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer came by and said “You know what is a good sign?” and after a brief pause answered his own question with “The 100k chips are purple and gold!” in a reference to the colors of the East Carolina University Pirates, where O’Dwyer went to college. So far it looks the omen might work for him.
He came into the day as the short stack but in the first 10 hands of play O’Dwyer (right) had chips in the middle 4 times and won each pot without going to showdown. On the very first hand at the televised final table Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka raised to 150k (blinds 30k / 60k 5k ante) and O’Dwyer shoved for just over 1 million. Jaka folded and Steve was off to a good start, breaking the ice and winning the first pot to the delight of his crowd of friends, sitting just behind Steve with only the prize money and bracelet in between them.
On the 3rd hand of the day O’Dwyer opened for a raise and Josh Arieh called from the big blind. On the flop Arieh check folded to Steve’s bet sending another small but important pot to O’Dwyer. Two hands later he was back at it, limping from the small blind in Scotty Nguyen’s big blind. Scotty checked behind and on the flop O’Dwyer check raised to 275k to take the pot.
The next hand O’Dwyer moved all his chips into the middle again, this time after an opening raise to 160k from Danny Alaei. Danny folded giving Steve his fourth pot out of the first six played. A few hands later the blinds went up to 40k / 80k with a 5k ante and though he has chipped significantly right off the bat he is still in short stack status along with Josh Arieh. Both are still under 2 million chips with Jaka adding to his chip lead after winning a major pot off of Danny Alaei.
Danny had opened to 210k and Jaka called. On the A
K
Q flop both players checked and with the J
on the turn Danny check called a bet of 275k from Faraz. On the 5 river Danny again checked and Faraz put out a 3/4 pot bet of 900k. Alaei took a few moments but ended up making the call. Jaka (right) tabled the TT for a straight which was good enough to win the pot and push his stack up to almost 6 million chips. Danny is down to 3.5 million after the hand, still in third place in the the chip counts trailing both Jaka and Nguyen who has around 4.5 million.
