Raise Raise Raise
by Court on 04.21.09, 4:18 pm
The start of day 3 at the World Poker Tour Championship has seen a lot of 3, 4 and 5 betting preflop. 162 players made it to the start of day 3, and as the action continues on deeper and deeper into the tournament the size of pots and intensity over each hand is increasing. Justin “Boosted J” Smith was one of the early eliminations, out in the first few hands of play for the day. Adam “Roothlus” Levy was all in, but the only caller had less chips than him. Adam lost the pot and was left short stacked but still has at least a few chips in front of him and can dream of a miraculous comeback.
Adam moved all in for around 65k after Phil Ivey had opened for 6k. Tim Bullard called all in for 48,900 and Ivey tossed his hand in. Levy had pocket sixes and was dominated by the pocket nines of Bullard. Ivey said he folded eights. The nines held up on a T-7-3-A-3 board to double Bullard, but had he folded Ivey would likely have called and eliminated Levy. Instead Adam is left with around 20k and less than a 10 big blind stack in a very deep stacked atmosphere. Expect his chips to be in the middle again soon.
Up at the table on the stage Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis, Haffa “Hafizzle” Khan, Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks, Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh and Shannon Shorr are battling it out. Steve raised one pot from under the gun to 5,500 and after Vadim Trincher raised to 16k Slaubaugh (right) put in another bet from the big blind to a total of 45,500. His 4-bet was good enough to take the pot.
Phil “USCPhildo” Collins (left) 4-bet Eugene Katchalov, but Eugene was having none of it and came back over the top all in with the 5th bet. Collins had opened for 7,200 and Katchalov raised to 22k. Collins came back with a bet of 62k and then Eugene moved all in for the rest of his 300k+ stack. Collins had him covered, but the pot would have been massive and left Phil short had he lost the hand. Instead, he folded and was able to keep most of his 400k day starting stack intact.
A few chips went back into Phil’s stack a couple hands later when he 3-bet over the top of a 6,500 chip opening raise from Andy Bloch. Andy called the 18k bet from Collins and the players checked the rest of the way to the end of a 7
54
85
board. Collins showed his AQ and picked up the pot when Andy tossed his cards to the dealer without showing.
Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo and Owen “Ocrowe” Crowe have also been going at it early on. Bonomo raised to 6,500 from under the gun and Crowe made it 18,200 from the button. Yevginey “Atimos” Timoshenko was in the big blind and went into the tank for a long time before finally folding his hand. While Yevginey was making his decision Bonomo had made up his mind as well and as soon as Atimos folded Justin put in a raise to 52k. After a short time in the tank Crowe surrendered his hand and Bonomo stack jumped to around 250k without seeing a flop.
