WSOP 2008
Kibler-Melby Doubles
by Crystal on 07.12.08, 9:56 pm
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby had been on life support for quite awhile with his stack as low as around 180k. Cort (pictured right) recently got all his chips in the middle with the A
2
against another players Q
9. The board ran out J
546K and Cort’s ace-high was good enough to boost his stack up to around 375k.
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman recently was involved in a huge pot against Alex Kostritsyn. Alex open-raised to 52k preflop and Garrett reraised to 177k total. Alex made the call and the flop came T74. Alex checked the flop over to Garrett who bet 150k. Alex asked how much Garrett had behind and the dealer counted around 700k more in chips in Garrett’s stack. Alex made the call and the turn brought the 2. The deuce was an action killer as both players checked to see the A fall on the river. Alex again checked but Garrett pushed out a bet of 300k. Alex thought for a bit, playing with his chips before finally making the call. Garrett instantly mucked his cards, caught trying to steal and Alex won the massive pot as Beckman’s stack dropped to around 400k.
Two PocketFivers collided at table 13 during the past level. David “raptor517″ Benefield raised to 55K in middle position and he was called by the button and Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki in the small blind. On the 653 flop, Klodnicki opened the betting for 100K and Benefield called. The button folded and two players saw the Q fall on the turn. Klodnicki checked and Benefield bet 225K. Klodnicki made the call and both players checked the T on the river. “Pair of sixes,” Benefield said as he flipped over 86. Klodnicki mucked and Benefield added more than 450K to his gigantic stack.
Here are a few recent chip counts we were able to grab.
David “raptor517″ Benefield - 2.6M
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 1.1M
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 900K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 800K
Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert - 650K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 400K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 375K
Jeff “jpapola” Papola - 250K
Schultz Surges, Negreanu Dominates
by Jill on 06.16.08, 5:48 am
Event #27’s $1.5K No-Limit Hold’em race for the bracelet has concluded for the evening with 18 players remaining in the field. Barry “BarryGS” Schultz sits near the top of the chip count with over 850K, now representing PocketFives in his logo t-shirt.
We caught up with Barry as he was raising preflop from the hijack to 48K with the blinds at 10K/20K. He took down the pot uncontested and did the same thing for the next two consecutive hands. He recounted a story from earlier in the tournament about a hand he played with Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman. Apparently, Barry made his move on the button by pushing all in to Scott’s preflop raise. Barry held 97. Scott, trying to edge out a Scandinavian player at the table, called the raise and flipped over A-J offsuit.
In the only hand Barry has played for his tournament life, he managed to hit a 9 on the river to save his stack and suck out. He recounted how tilted Scott got at the bad beat; apparently Scott raised all in for the next seven hands, despite being deep-stacked even after the beat. The field lost two more players after Barry told his story; play is now down to the final two tables and will resume tomorrow at 2PM PST while players compete for the bracelet and $628,290.
Daniel Negreanu (pictured at right) had much to smile about in the $5K Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys as his stack went from 100k to over 1M in twenty minutes. Play was down to the final two tables. Negreanu went over the one million mark when he busted David Williams’ 500k chip stack in the following hand:
On a flop of 732, Williams bet out 40k and Negreanu called. The T dropped on the turn and Williams bet and got raised by Negreanu. Williams reraised all-in, prompting a snap call from Negreanu. Williams tabled the T987, drawing dead to Negreanu’s AT{7s]7 full house.
Negreanu jokingly said he’s hoping to get at least ninth place so he can break even from the 85k he’s invested in the tournament. Many big names remain in the final 14 including Johnny Chan, Chris Ferguson, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Brian “tsarrast” Rast, Phil Hellmuth, John Juanda, David Benyamine, and Alexander Kostritsyn.
Gavin Fun
by Jessica on 06.14.08, 6:08 pm
Round 4 of the $10K Heads Up event has been running less than an hour, but already players are making quick work of their opponents. Recent bracelet winner Vanessa Selbst was the first to advance to the Sweet 16 and shortly on her heels was Gavin Griffin (pictured at right), who won his match after the following hand transpired:
With starting stacks of 160K and the blinds at 1K/2K, Griffin raised to 5K total and Alex Kostritsyn made the call. The flop came 432 and Kostritsyn checked. Griffin bet out 8K and Alex raised 10.5K on top. Griffin thought for a moment before raising again for 30K more. Kostritsyn then moved all-in for another 35K or so and Griffin called with AJ to his KK. The turn came T and the river was a king, but the K, which gave Griffin the winning flush.
The 2,706 person field of the $1.5K NLHE Event #27 has been narrowed to 1,970 already and several players are starting to build their stacks. Here are some chip counts we spotted heading into the break:
13K - Craig “MrCasino” Gray
7.5K - Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul
7K - Court Harrington
6.6K - Scott “ssitron” Sitron
6K - Mike “wiscomurray” Murray
4.7K - Michael “moneymike10″ Prepelica
Other players, like Joe Sebok, made an early exit in the event. Joe was eliminated in Level 1 of play when he got it all-in preflop with A-K to Roy Winston’s pocket queens. The board came out 9 high and Winston was the benefactor of an early double up. In addition to Sebok, Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, Nick “fu_15″ Maimone, Scott “gunning4you” Seiver, and Shane “shaniac” Schleger also made early exits.