Round One Done and Done
by Jessica on 06.13.09, 11:44 pm
The first round of the $10,000 Heads-Up Championship appears to be in the books and the players have a nice break before they have to return at 10PM for their second and final match of the night.
A few players will have a little shorter break than everyone else. Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert (pictured left), Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania, Alex “Kadabra” Keating, and Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong all participated in some of the longest matches, but thankfully won so probably didn’t mind the length of the grind as much as their opponents.
Charania and his opponent, Ted Forrest, decided to take matters into their own hands and take their own mini-bathroom break, as the heads-up event has no breaks scheduled into it. Coming back from break, the players were essentially even, but with the blinds up to 800/1,600 it didn’t take long for Mohsin to pull ahead after winning one or two key pots. On the final hand of the match Forrest moved all-in for his last 10K and Charania quickly called with A
9
. He was racing with Forrest’s 8
8 and needed some help as the board ran out Q7
57. Mohsin was able to hit an A on the river to win the pot and the match.
Armstrong had to rally from behind to win his match against David Lambart. He managed to double up his remaining 9K and picked up another pot when Armstrong check-called a 1.5K bet from his opponent on a T86 flop. No one seemed to notice or say anything that this was not a legal bet, as the blinds were 800/1,600. Both players checked the A on the turn and Armstrong checked once again after the 8 came on the river. His opponent fied out 4.5K and Jamie thought a while before calling with K6 for bottom pair with a king kicker. Lambart showed 2-3–in other words, he was playing the board.
Shortly after that, Armstrong minraised and Lambart called. The flop camed K82 and Lambart checked to Jamie, who bet 3.2K. Lambart moved all-in and Armstrong quickly called, tabling KK for top set. Lambart’s K9 appeared to be in deep trouble and the 8 on the turn left him drawing dead to Armstrong’s boat.
After the hand, Lambart was left with only 3K and moved all-in blind the next hand. Armstrong called with his 35 which was actually in bad shape against Lambart’s A3. Armstrong picked up outs on the Q64 and made his straight when the 7 hit on the turn. The river was the 2 and Armstrong was able to rally back, win his match, and advance.
Alex “Kadabra” Keating wanted us to add a disclaimer to the last hand of his victorious match against:
“I was all-in with good ones too.”
In his defense, his opponent was down to his last ten big blinds or so and the match had become an all-in preflop ship fest. Keating moved all-in and the other player called with QT and looked poised to double up against Alex’s Q5. The Q{8s]5 flop brought Keating two pair though and when the turn and river came A then Q his queens and fives held to advance him to Round Two.
Some of the other players who made it through to the second round include:
Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer
Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby (pictured right)
Brock “t_soprano” Parker
Jason “JCarver” Somerville
Kyle “dumpingkgb” Brossia
Scott “gunning4you” Seiver
Michael “worldsgrtst” Banducci
Yevgeniy “atimos” Timoshenko
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier
David Benefield
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar
WSOP 2009 Event #24: $1.5K NLHE
The final table is down to 6-handed play and Andy “BKiCe” Seth is now sitting in the middle of the pack after his pocket queens were cracked by A-8. He is now 3rd in chips with 1.7 million with Glenn “The GFactor” McCaffrey and Dean “StickyINC” Hamrich sitting in 4th and 5th respectively. Meanwhile, Brian “fitzfitz” Fitzpatrick was eliminated in 9th place, earning $73,886.
