“It Was Just a Setup”
by Brett on 07.14.09, 7:50 pm
That was Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward’s take on a hand that revamped his stack to 4 million and sent a player home during Level 27. Ward, with just over 2 million in front of him, raised from late position at 25K/50K blinds and Adam Blitzerian moved all in for 2 million from the small blind. Action folded back to Ward and he called without any thought. Ward tabled pocket kings while Blitzerian sheepishly revealed his pocket tens.
The A
A
J flop kept Ward in the lead and the Q
turn left his opponent drawing to two tens in the deck. The dealer peeled over the 9, which got a slight reaction out of Ward, but his pocket kings held up and he barely had his opponent covered to send him to the rail. With 45 players remaining Joe is just below the average of 4.25 million.
Ryan “toetagu” Fair has been at the ESPN feature table most of the afternoon and a recent hand involving himself and Hung Pham, Ryan may have just booked himself a minute of fame on the TV. Fair and Pham got it all-in preflop with Ryan’s tournament life on the line. Ryan’s {ts]T were trailing the KK of Pham, but the door card was the T, followed by the 9
and then the 8. Ryan’s set held as the 5 peeled off on the turn and the river was an inconsequential 9 to double Ryan up to just over 3 million chips. Meanwhile, Pham was eliminated on the very next hand when he moved his extreme short stack all-in and Antonio Esfandiari’s 28 was able to fill up against Hung’s A6 on an 8-6-2-6-5 board.
Ben “benba” Lamb continued to stay active at his table this past hour. He raised to 150K from the button and the player in the big blind called. The flop came down AKQ and both players checked. The turn was another queen, the Q and the big blind led for 210K which Lamb quickly called. The river brought the T and the other player fired out 415K. Ben thought briefly before calling and mucked when his opponent showed AJ for a rivered Broadway straight.
Billy “Patrolman35″ Kopp is still the tournament chip leader, but the recent addition of Phil Ivey to his immediate left has made things a little more difficult for him. In one hand Kopp raised to 150K with the blinds at 30K/60K ante 10K and Ivey called in position. They went heads up to a 772 flop and both players checked. They checked again when the 4 fell on the turn and Billy led for 225K when the A hit on the river. Ivey quickly raised to 700K total and Kopp folded.
A few hands later Kopp won some chips off another player at the table. We caught up with this hand midway through the action with the board reading T32 Ivey had checked in the small blind, the player in the hijack bet what looked like 250K and Billy called on the button. The 9 on the turn prompted the other player to check and Kopp bet out 575K, which his opponent called. The river came 7 and Kopp’s opponent checked once again. Billy slid a stack of purple (or what the tournament staff call Hawaiin Garden) 100K chips and threw 13 of them in the pot. The 1.3 million chip bet was enough to get his opponent to fold and Kopp chipped back up to 15 million.
Nick “fu_15″ Maimone and Joe “jcada99″ Cada clashed once again recently when Nick raised to 160K in early position and Cada called from the big blind. The two players checked the flop and the turn as the board ran out J752. The river brought the 9 and Cada fired out 175K which Maimone called. Joe turned up A9 for a rivered pair of nines and Nick mucked, dropping down to around 3.5 million chips.
