WSOP 2008
BadBeatNinja Disappears Into the Night
by Jill on 07.06.08, 2:00 am
Level 4 of Day 1C saw a rash of eliminations starting with Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire (pictured at right). Devonshire had been towards the top of the leaderboard for the majority of the day, but lost a monster pot for his entire stack when he and another player got all-in with the same nut straight, but his opponent had the freeroll to hit the spade flush. The spade came on the river, Bryan was eliminated, and Day 1C found itself a brand new chipleader. Unfortunately, no one found REAL ULTIMATE POWER as a result.
Phil “USCPhildo” Collins was also eliminated this level when he and Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin got involved in a three-way hand. With the blinds at 150/300 ante 25, Eric raised to 800 under the gun and Collins reraised to 2.4K. The player in the small blind and Baldwin both made the call. The flop came down 9
82
and both the small blind and Eric checked to Phil. Collins thought for at least a minute before moving all-in for nearly 15K. The player in the small blind tanked briefly before moving all-in behind Phil and Eric quickly folded. Collins showed A
Q and needed some help against the other player’s JJ. The turn and river came 42 and Phil gave us a friendly, “See you next year!” as he headed for the door.
Amit “amak316″ Makhija, who had been shortstacked for much of the level was also eliminated when his two pair failed to hold against his opponent’s straight draw.
Meanwhile, Ladbrokes team pro John Kalmar (pictured at left) has been struck by lightning. With a board that read AJ23 and a more-than-14K pot in the middle, John’s opponent bet 10K and he went in behind for his entire 37K stack. After calling over the floor to determine if he could expose one of his cards to Kalmar, his opponent tanked for a long time before the clock was called. Finally, he made the the call and John flipped over pocket twos against his opponent’s A3. When the 3 came on the river, John was sent to the rail on a stretcher.
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline has apparently developed quite the table image at his table. A player in early position raised to 900 and three other players called behind him. Kline then moved all-in from the small blind for 8,650. The initial raiser seemed quite frustrated with Kline’s move and accidentally revealed the K
as he tossed his cards in the muck. Everyone else folded as well and the man claimed he folded AK.
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (pictured at right)reported during Level 4 that he considered one of his recent plays an emotional victory; he finally won a race. Gary told PocketFives that he held A-Q and bet 900 preflop, only to be met with a 4,400 raise from one opponent. He managed to flop an ace and get his chips in good, winning the pot and chipping up to 24K before the last level of the evening. He and Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti have both been checking PocketFivesLive for action updates on their iPhones, especially now that David “davidp18″ Peters is also at their table. We’re wondering what the over/under is until they realize that Tom “werpennstate23″ Cummings has also sat down to the table.
Meanwhile, Hung “HQrespect” Nguyen hovered around the 20K mark and saw a flop with four-way action. The board came KJA and all players checked. The T came on the turn and Hung raised to 1K. Two players called and the 8 came out on the river. Again, Hung bet 1K to induce a fold from one other player, but one opponent called him, flipping over K-Q to Hung’s QQ. They chopped the pot and Hung added a few chips to his stack.
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania added 10K to his stack after picking up a pot at the end of Level 4. With 5K in the middle preflop, Charania called a bet of 1.5K on a board of KT2. The K came on the turn and Charania called a bet of 2K. On the river, Charania’s opponent check-called a bet of 4K and Charania showed K8. The other player mucked. He is now at 88K, and at the opposite end of the table from Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal. “I don’t want to double him up,” Charania said of the short-stacked Agarwal as they both went on a 20-minute break.
Also afraid of doubling others up at his table was Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell, who sat at an intimidating table with Michael Binger and David Singer. He reported to PocketFives that he managed to chip up to 45K with pocket aces versus K-J on a jack-high flop. He lamented that he hadn’t gotten the full value for his aces, however, because he put his opponent on a set. Because of the recent addition of Michael Binger to the table, he said he planned on blinding off to the end of the day. We can’t blame you, Justin!
We caught Ezra Galston taking a small hit to his stack on the last hand before break. On a board of A435Q, Galston was facing a bet of 2.7K from an opponent. He contemplated for three minutes before making the call and mucked his cards when his opponent showed AJ. Galston is now at 19.5K.
Here are some notable unofficial chipstacks at the end of Level 4:
David “Bakes” Baker - 130K
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania - 88K
Darren Elias - 86K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 67K
Tom “werpennstate23″ Cummings - 49.5K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 45K
Felipe “Improved” Montenegro - 37K
Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo - 34K
Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong - 32K
Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti - 30K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 27.5K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 27.5K
Jason “mkind0516″ Laso - 27K
David “Davidp18″ Peters - 26K
Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich - 26K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 24K
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 24K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 23K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 22K
Patrik “Hoffs28″ Hoffman - 21K
Hung “HQrespect” Nguyen - 20K
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 16.5K
Scott “stsitron” Sitron - 14K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 13.5K
Bucked in Level 1
by Brett on 07.05.08, 4:36 pm
Shawn “sbuck21″ Buchanan’s Main Event has already come to an end after he got it all-in with a set of sevens against his opponent’s set of jacks on the river. While that hand didn’t deal the final blow to Shawn (pictured right), it did leave him with less than 1,000 chips. A few hands later he moved all-in with K-10 and was called by another player who held K-Q. The board was no help to Buchanan and he was gone around 20 minutes after play began.
Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire lost a decent-sized pot early on to cut his stack to 14,000. On a board of 642, Devonshire check-called a bet of 1,000. He then led out for 1,025 when the 4 hit on the river and was raised to 3,000. Devonshire called and checked the 7 on the river. His opponent bet a measly 1,000 and Devonshire tossed a yellow chip into the pot for the call to find that his opponent had 66 for a full house. Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert is also seated at that table.
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby and Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong registered just before play began and were subsequently seated together in the Red section of the Amazon Room. They started four-handed at the table and on the very first hand Hamby raised to 225 from under the gun and it folded around. Jared showed pocket aces and Armstrong commented “You won’t see those again for the rest of the day.”
Jon Wein (pictured left) found himself seated to the right of J.C. Tran and has been bullying the bracelet winner around preflop so far, reraising him three separate times in the first 30 minutes. That might be helped by the fact that Wein has been hit with the deck — he told us he had aces, queens and ace-king on those hands.
Several internet players are seated together including our own Court Harrington and Jordan “scarface79″ Smith. Jason “JCarver” Somerville and Mark “PokerHo” Kroon are also tablemates, as are Isaac Haxton and Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks, and Justin Bonomo and Felipe “Improved” Montenegro. Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski is seated next to Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti. When he noticed us snapping photos of his neighbor he started to inquire who it was before stopping himself noting, “its more fun if I don’t know.”
Monday, Monday
by Jessica on 06.30.08, 10:03 pm
As play neared the dinner break, we observed several players getting increasingly bored with play and daydreaming about where to go find some food. The field has dropped from 2,700 to 640 and now are seated almost entirely in the blue and green sections of the Amazon room.
Ben “bfineman” Fineman (pictured at right) and Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire decided to pass the time by betting on the color of flops, that is, until Devonshire busted Fineman midway through Level 6. Bryan did assure us that Ben made up some of his buy-in through their prop betting.
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman is passing the time watching “Family Guy” on his Ipod while, one table over, Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan is enjoying a massage. As we watched the masseuse muss up Ryan’s mop of hair, Pocket Fives had to ask Danny how he maintains focus with hair flopping around in his face. He smiled and replied, “it doesn’t require a lot of focus to fold K-4.”
Here are some unofficial chip counts headed into dinner break:
Scott “gunning4you” Seiver - 31K
Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh - 25K
Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn - 20K
Andy “BKice” Seth - 13K
Bryan Devonshire - 12K
Nick “fu_15″ Maimone - 11.5K
Garrett Beckman - 10.5K
Shaun “Cougar4444″ Hendrickson - 9K
Scott “ssitron” Sitron - 7K
Danny Ryan - 7K
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar - 4.5K
Faraz “The Toliet-0′ Jaka - 4K
No Double Dipping
by Jessica on 06.30.08, 7:42 pm
Several players in the $1.5K HORSE event decided to try to kill a couple of hours before Day 2 of play began by signing up for the $1.5K No Limit Hold Em event. Unfortunately, the double dipping didn’t appear to work out well for most of them. Shannon Shorr made early exits in both events while Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire (pictured at right) lasted a mere 3 hands in Day 2 of the HORSE event before returning to the $1.5K No Limit event. Doug “Resilient” Smith, on the other hand, was too late to register for the Hold Em event, but remains in the HORSE event with 9K. Meanwhile, Alex Jacob continues to alternate back and forth between the two events.
Luckily for Bryan, he has already built up a big stack to return to in the $1.5K event. He was recently moved to the right of Ben “bfineman” Fineman and, when we caught up to Devonshire, he had raised to 550 under the gun with the blinds at 100/200 ante 25. The player in the small blind reraised to 1750 and Bryan thought momentarily before making the call. The flop came J86 and the player in the small blind bet out 2.5K. Devonshire immediately moved all-in for his remaining 9K, which more than covered the other player’s chip stack.
The other player eventually folded and the table called for Devonshire to reveal his hand. He declined, but did let Pocket Fives have a peek at his 89 before he tossed it in the muck. After Bryan gave us permission to post it on Pocket Fives, but made us promise not to tell anyone on the floor, Fineman called out, “anyone have the internet on their phone?”
Another player making moves in the $1.5K Hold Em event is Andy “BKice” Seth (pictured at left), who recently doubled up when he moved all-in for his remaining 3.8K on a board reading Q6223 and his opponent thought momentarily before making the call. Seth showed AQ for the nut flush and the other player mucked, sending the 16K pot Andy’s way.
Faraz “The Toliet-0″ Jaka’s table has been extremely active, with numerous all-ins on almost every hand. While his tablemate TJ Cloutier is staying out of the all-in fests, Jaka recently got tangled in an enormous pot when he picked up pocket aces. With the blinds at 100/200 Young Phan shoved all-in under the gun for 550 and a player in early position reraised to 1,100. Faraz then shoved all-in for 2,875 with his aces, and the button moved all-in for 6K right behind him. The player who reraised to 1,100 made the call and they all turned over their hands:
Phan: A-10
Early Position Player: Q-Q
Jaka: A-A
Button Player: A-K
The board ran out T82T5 and Phan took the main pot with trip tens, while Jaka scooped the side pot for 6,700.
Pocket Fives recently learned that Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan and yesterday’s $2K No Limit Hold Em runner up Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson (pictured at right) were also in today’s enormous field. With registration maxed out, players were put in every corner of the Rio and Johnson and Ryan spent the first three levels of play outside of the seafood restaurant Buzio’s–nearly one-third of a mile away from the Amazon Room. Ryan told us he was “happy to get out of the ghetto” and into the main room. He is sitting in good shape with 8.5K while Johnson is holding steady at his 3K starting stack.
Here are some chip counts of some of the other 1,620 players still in the event:
Scott “gunning4you” Seiver - 14K
Ken “isuck123″ Goldin - 10.5K
Ben Fineman - 8.5K
Nick “fu_15″ Maimon - 6.5K
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar - 5K
Shaun “Cougars4444″ Hendrickson - 3.5K
Only Down $11,000 Now!
by Crystal on 06.19.08, 10:15 pm
In event #34 there are currently 27 players remaining which seemed to excite Jeff “yellowsub” Williams quite a bit. Jeff explained when there were 28 players left that he had rebought quite a bit at the beginning of this tournament, totaling up to around $30k. As soon as PocketFives informed him that one of the other tables had just called out “seat open,” Jeff gave a little cheer saying “Yes! Only $11k in the hole now!” We’re hoping that Jeff and his short stack get out of the entire hole for this tournament soon. Players are currently taking a dinner break and when they return the blinds will be 4k/8k so Jeff will have to make a move soon as his stack is currently at 77k. Tim “Tmay420″ West’s stack is sitting at a more comfortable 175k.
Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire currently has 42k in chips with 33 players remaining in the $1.5k Stud event #35. The bubble has already burst, with the top 40 players finishing in the money. Everytime PocketFives walks by the table Bryan seems to be smiling and he has a lot to smile about right now as he is guaranteed at least $2,340 and with his large stack has a good chance to run much deeper.