WSOP 2008
Fizzling Hot
by Court on 10.10.08, 6:47 pm
Kings versus aces, the dreaded cooler in poker. Ryan “Gotskillz” Fisler had another player all in preflop, and after Ryan showed his K
K
the other player seemed almost disappointed with his AA
. His disappointment turned to despair as the flop came K
Q2 and Fisler flopped a set of kings to take the lead in the hand. 
The turn was the 4 and took away any possible flush on board to chop the pot leaving the player with aces drawing to two outs. The J on the turn was not the ace needed and Fisler was able to pick up a nice pot with a come from behind win with kings against aces.
From the talk around the table, and comments from Fisler (right) himself, it sounds like this wasn’t the first time Fisler hit a hand when he needed to. At the very least this was the second time today he cracked aces with pocket kings.
Aces treated Christian “charder” Harder better than Fisler’s opponent though. On a board of A75K2 an all in bet and a call resulted in Harder sending the player with the 53 home after his bottom pair and all in river bet ran into Harder’s top set with the AA. Harder’s towers of chips continue to grow as he pushes the 100k mark.
In a battle of two players known to make a hand every now and then, and also for applying a fair amount of pressure, JC Tran and Annette Obrestad went back and forth on the turn before Annette surrendered her hand. After an opening raise to 1,100 and a call by Tran, Annette raised to 4,100 and only JC called. The flop was all hearts with the J97 hitting the board. Jc checked and Annette followed suit by checking behind. The turn was another heart, adding the 6 to the mix. Tran led out for 3,500 and Annette raised to 9,700 only to have JC put in another raise to a total of 20,700. Annette quickly slid her cards into the dealer giving the pot to JC.
Big Hands, Big Pots
by Court on 10.10.08, 4:15 pm
Tomorrow’s day 1B players can expect to have a lot of trash hands if things equal out, because the first two levels of day 1A play have seen a lot of aces and kings, quads here and there, full houses all over the place and generally just a lot of big starting hands and made hands after the board comes out.
Shaun Deeb just ran a full house into Joe Sebok’s bigger full house, Christain “charder” Harder flopped a set and turned quads to bust a player and Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad made a measly flush to send a player home from her table.
Ryan “gotskillz” Fisler was off to a quick start today after flopping quad kings and doubling up in the early going. Near the end of the second level he picked up a small pot from Shaun Deeb when 
his jacks won on a 985K4 board to take a total of about 4k off of Deeb. That pot was the least of Shaun’s worries though as a few hands later he had all his chips in the middle against Joe Sebok.
On a K86J board Deeb led for 1,800 and Sebok (left) and Corey “UGOTPZD” Carroll both called. The river was the J and Shaun checked to Sebok who bet 5,500. After a few minutes of thought Carroll folded his hand and the action was to Deeb who also went into the tank. After a minute or two Shaun arranged his chips and used both hands to slide the stacks forward for an all in bet. Before Deeb had finished pushing the chips out Sebok announced a call and turned over his J8 for a full house. A dejected Deed showed his J6 for a smaller boat and made his exit from the tourney as Sebok added another large chunk to his chip stack and is up to roughly 75k.
At the table beside Sebok another player was headed for the rails, courtesy of Annette Obrestad. Annette raised to 550 and one player called to see a 432 flop. Both players put 1,050 in on the flop and with the Q on the turn the other players last 2,750 went in and the red all in button came out beside his small stack. Annette quickly had enough of the orange 1k chips out to cover the bet and her 86 face up showing her flush. The other player held AK with no club and was drawing dead and eliminated from the North American Poker Championship.
Quads won a big pot earlier for Fisler, and Christain “charder” Harder has also chipped up to around 50k after flopping a set of tens and turning quads to bust a player that was all in with a pair of jacks. Harder mentioned he also won some chips earlier when his AJ was able to beat pocket kings.
Peter “Mr. Motown” Valente was priced into a call on the river of a board showing KQ7Q8 after he bet 1,600 and a player raised to 3,200. “All I can beat is a stupid bluff,” Valente said as he reluctantly made the call and telling the other player that a “queen is good.” The player didn’t have a queen but did show pocket aces to win the pot.
Since losing the big pot earlier Kofi “redsoxsox” Farkye has since seen the last of his chips run out and has been eliminated from the tournament.
Chips, Chips, Chips
by Court on 10.10.08, 2:21 pm
“I’m not used to having so many chips,” Annette Obrestad said, referring to both the large starting stacks and the way the chips are broken down denomination wise. Usually players start with a couple large denomination chips of 5k to keep the total number of actual chips they have down to a reasonably small amount.
At the North American Poker Championship the starting stacks come with chip denominations of 1k, 500, 100 and 25, meaning there are a lot of the orange 1k chips in the room. Later in the tournament there will be color ups and larger denomination chips will be brought into play, but for now full stacks of the 1k chips are a common sight around the room, an unusual thing for this early in a tournament.
Kofi “redsoxsox” Farkye (left) made a final table appearance here last year, but if he has any hope of making it back to back he is going to have to go on an impressive heater in the near future. After some preflop raising an aggressive Farkye made it 3,500 to go and was called. On the T75 flop Farkye check called a 6,500 bet and the pot grew to an increasingly large size with over 20k in the middle.
On the Q turn the rest of the chips went in and Farkye was up against a turned set of queens with his opponent holding the QQ and Farkye with the overpair and the flush draw with the KK. Once the chips were counted Kofi had to match the 17,550 his opponent had remaining, leaving himself with just over 3k if he lost the hand. The 9 on the river left the set of queens standing tall and Farkye on the short stack as the first level of play for the day neared an end.
A glance around the room showed these players among those in day 1a action: Tim “Tmay420″ West, Christian “charder” Harder, Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier, Randal “RandALLin” Flowers, Peter “Mr. Motown” Valente, Isaac “mr. menlo” Baron, Matt “Ch0ppy” Kay, Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad, Shaun Deeb, Ryan “gotskillz” Fisler, and Joe Sebok.
Feature Table, Queen’s Kings Overthrown
by Court on 09.28.08, 8:11 pm
With the lights, cameras and TV crews swarming around it is somewhere between dificult and impossible to get into the area right around the feature table to see what is going on. The multi-leveled Empire Casino does provide some views of the table, though none from a vantage point where cards or bet amounts could be seen with any hope of accuracy.
The distant view is good enough to see who is there though, and more importantly who is not. There will be no amazing story of back to back World Series of Poker Europe Main Event victory for Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad (right) this year. From this point on anything having to do with her and this tournament will be a promotional media based affair. We have been told from those around the feature table that Annette’s pocket kings fell to the A-Q of Marco Traniello, presumably all in preflop.
Shane “Shaniac” Schleger has was also eliminated from the feature table earlier today.
Other players missing in action include Jason “JCarver” Somerville who did not survive long into level 5 with his severe short stack, and Yevginiy “Atimos” Timoshenko (left) - one of my pre-tournament pick to go deep.
Adam Junglen is back on the right track though, recently picking up chips with a raise after a flop of 872. The other player in the pot bet out on the flop for 2,150 into the 3,400 chip pot. Junglen raised to 6,600 and his opponent folded the AK face up saying “I wanted you to raise me preflop.”
Day 1A started with 159 players and finished with 86 remaining. Todays numbers were a bit larger with 203 players starting the day. At last check the field was down to 14 tables and no more than 126 remaining players. That number will drop as the night continues and around 185 players are expected to make it to day 2 play out of the 362 total entrants. The number of entrants may be off by 1 or 2 as the official registration list won’t be out till later tonight.
Lights On
by Court on 09.28.08, 11:40 am
The downstairs area referred to as the dungeon started out the day in even more dungeon like fashion, with the lights dimmed to the point of barely being able to see. Daniel Negreanu was one of many players down there to voice a complaint and before long the lights were on. With Negreanu located there it wasn’t long until the cameras showed up to film either, and other than Daniel there are some other camera grabbers holding chairs down in the dungeon.
Barry Greenstein and David Williams are on of the tables, Jeff “ActionJeff” Garza (right) and Josh “JJProdigy” Fields are seated at the same far corner table and Adam Junglen and Alex Jacob are at the first table in the door making for plenty of storylines for the ESPN camera crews in the room. It was announced to the players on both day 1’s that this tournament will be broadcast on ESPN and into 350 million homes.
While the cameras are rolling in the dungeon and the main area, the upstairs corner of the room is seeing a lot of action even if it isn’t getting much video attention. Jamie Rosen has jumped out as the chip leader, collecting around 75k worth of chips in the first level and a half of play. If this were a bounty tournament he would have a handful of those already too, including that of Jean-Robert Bellande, who it turns out is not a Survivor - at least not on Day 1 of the WSOP Europe Main Event.
Earlier today before play started Annette Obrestad stopped by to chat a little bit and mentioned that she could not win the tournament today, only lose it. “I’ll just fold to day 2 and then start to play,” she said. Well, so far the defending champion has folded her way to double the starting stack and is sitting with a very healthy 40k chips midway through the second level. Brian “sbrugby” Townsend is also right around double the initial starting stack.
Pictured Left: Overhead shot of the feature table with Annette Obrestad.