WSOP 2008
Seat Open!
by Crystal on 06.28.08, 6:16 pm
Because play ended last night in the $2k NLHE event #48 right after the bubble burst, the “all-in fest” that usually occurs immediately following was saved for today. Less than 30 minutes after play began two tables had already been broken and David “ComptonMasta” Barter and Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin are amongst the early casualties.
Bryan “Devo” Devonshire was also eliminated when his pocket fives ran into pocket jacks and failed to improve.
60 players have been eliminated in the first 75 minutes of play today and the other short stacks will obviously be looking to make moves soon so the high number of eliminations is likely to continue through the early part of the afternoon.
In the $1.5k NLHE event that started at noon today Justin Bonomo (pictured right) has jumped out as one of the early chip leaders with 14k while Theo Tran, Jeff ”yellowsub” Williams and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul have already been eliminated.
Eric “Rizen” Lynch was guarding a short stack when PocketFives caught up to his table on a T-7-4 flop. Eric moved all in with Q-8 after the flop and managed to double against pocket jacks when he spiked a queen on the turn. Another player at his table asked, “Is there a bounty on you or something?” before Eric laughed and collected the pot. Other players faring less profitably include Dave “davyg” Gyarmti, who had accumulated up to 5.2K in chips until his pocket kings were cracked by pocket nines. He was down to 1.8K at the break.
Other PocketFives members spotted in the event include David “seal” Eisenstein, Scott “thebasher007″ Stubbs, Nick “FU_15″ Maimone, William “gptbigguy” Looper, Joseph “Dyzalot” Morneau, Micah “mordan” Hendrix, Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka, Chris “sooooted” Vaughn, Steve “willywoo” Nolan, Matt “All In At 420″ Stout, Eric “erbloore” Bloore, and Matt “SamENole” Smith. Some chip counts for other players are listed below.
Amit “amak316″ Makhija - 3.5K (pictured left)
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 4K
Stuart “zpaceman” Taylor - 5.2K
Chris “big huni” Hunichen - 4K
Andriy “tormos” Pavlyuk - 6K
Shawn “raptorfan” Morris - 4.5K
Greenstein Wins Third Bracelet
by Jill on 06.16.08, 4:29 am
In Event #30, the $10K Limit Hold’em Championship, Barry Greenstein (pictured at left) recently returned to his stack after sitting out for a long time. Amazingly enough, 11K of his stack remained at the table, despite blinding away for hours. He shouldn’t be too disappointed, however, since while his stack was thinning, he was busy winning Event #26, the $1.5K Razz tournament. Congratulations to Barry on his third bracelet and $157,619!
As Greenstein was signing his book for second-place finisher Chris Klodnicki, Chris “sooooted” Vaughn sat in the one seat, taking down small uncontested pots to increase his stack to 55K, well above the average 34K. Amanda Leatherman sat at the next table over guarding Greenstein’s new bracelet, which PocketFives guesstimates would fit around her waist.
Behind Vaughn sat Brock “t_soprano” Parker, who was bullying Bill Chen’s short stack to his right. Chen raised and met a preflop call from Parker. The flop came A
9T
. Chen checked, Parker raised, and Chen called. The turn came the 2, meeting the same action as before. When the 5 came on the river, Chen raised, and Parker called, showing down pocket aces for the win. Parker’s stack was sitting pretty at 70K. Matt “mattster24″ Sterling was also sitting comfortably with over 60K in chips.
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, however, was in trouble with only 15K in chips and sitting at a stacked table with Erick Lindgren, Joe Sebok, and Alex Kravchenko. Fortunately, Mizzi hasn’t given up hope yet; as PocketFives watched, he raised on the button and met a call from one other player in the big blind. The flop came 66
4 and the big blind raised, which Mizzi called. The 8
on the turn met a check from the big blind and a raise from Mizzi. This action induced a fold and Mizzi’s stack grew to more than 21K. Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, however, was unable to improve his short stack and was eliminated from the tournament.
The $3K No-Limit Hold’em tournament ended for the night with 81 out of 716 players remaining. Play resumes tomorrow at 2PM PST where many PocketFivers contend for the bracelet and a grand prize of $434,789.
Shootout–Take Two
by Jessica on 06.10.08, 2:10 am
Play is finally underway for Round Two of the $1.5K NLHE Shootout event after the final, marathon heads up session of Round One came to a close. The original plan was to break for one hour after the last table was completed, but when that table ran so late, they shortened the break to around 15 minutes before resuming play. Unfortunately for Brian “Like7″ Lamanna, no one told him about the changes, so he did not arrive to the event until the first level was nearly over. Brian has some ground to make up and has 20K of his 30K starting stack left with the blinds at 400/800 and a 100 ante.
Chris “sooooted” Vaughn (pictured at left) exited the tournament shortly before Lamanna arrived and 13 other players have headed home for the night as well. Most of the tables are still relatively full, but play will not end until each of the ten tables has played down to a single winner. Here are the chip counts of several P5ers and notable online players remaining in the field:
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 55K
Matthew “Hazards21″ Gianetti - 50K
Casey “ccmuney” Coleman - 37K
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 35K
David “nutsr84444″ Redlin - 35K
Tom “SBRounder” West - 29K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 20K
Across the room, the $10K Stud Championship event crowned Eric Brooks their winner and he will be taking home $415,856 for his efforts.
The other events still taking place as the night progresses are the $1K ladies event, which is one player away from setting the final table, the $5K 2-7 Single Draw with rebuys, and the $2K Omaha Hi/Lo Split event.
Phil Kills Phil
by Crystal on 06.06.08, 7:57 pm
In the $5k shootout it was a “battle of Phils” between Phil “USCphildo” Collins (pictured right) and Phil Laak. Collins got all his chips in preflop with the KT and Laak showed 66. The flop seemed promising for both as it came KT3 giving Collins two pair and Laak a flush draw. The Q on the turn completed Laak’s flush and the 3 on the river put the wrong pair on the board eliminating Collins.
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar has also been eliminated from the shootout when he got it all in with the KQ against his opponents AK. The flop of QJ2 gave Vivek a pair of queens to take the lead. A meaningless 8 came on the turn but the river was the T giving his opponent broadway and knocking Vivek out of the tournament.
Nearby Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy seemed to be in good spirits and put in a raise preflop. The player on the button began playing with a stack of his yellow (1,000) chips but eventually folded as did the rest of the table. Josephy, upset that no one called, jokingly said “You got me so excited when you got out those yellow chips! I’m so mad I’m not going to show now!”
Chris Vaughn tangled with John Juanda again and this time it was Vaughn who was all in preflop. He was ahead holding the AQ to Juanda’s AT and his hand became even stronger as he made broadway on a flop of KJT. The 3 came on the turn, but Juanda’s good luck kicked in again and the Q on the river let him catch up and chop the pot with Vaughn.
Players in the shootout have continued to disappear from the blue section of the amazon room, with some tables having already completed play for the day. At the end of the 2nd break Joe Sebok is chip leader at his table which is four-handed and Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert (pictured left) is heads-up with a signifigant chip lead. Chris “genius28″ Lee, Amit “amak316″ Makhija, Thayer Rasmussen, and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul are more of the players that have been eliminated.
For those players who manage to win their first table of the shootout today, a payday of at least $16,920 will be headed their way.
Hamby Looking to Gain Ground
by Crystal on 06.06.08, 5:50 pm
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby (pictured right) is going to have to work hard to improve his stack as day 2 of the $1.5k NLHE/Six Handed tournament starts. Hamby doubled at the end of day one to stay alive, but with only 26k in chips and the blinds at 800/1,600 at the start of play today he will need to make some moves fairly early. There are only 71 of the original 1,236 players remaining and the chip leader, Matt Matros, has over 156k in chips.
Over in the $5k shootout some tables have been losing players at a much faster rate than others. Some are down to only a few players while others, like table 6, still have all ten players. Phil “USCphildo” Collins commented right before the first break they “hadn’t even heard the words ‘all in’”.
Chris Vaughn (pictured left) might wish that John Juanda hadn’t gone all in at his table. Vaughn bet 1,125 out on a flop of KK5 and Juanda called. When the 8 fell on the turn, Juanda led the action betting 1,625 only to be quickly raised by Vaughn who threw in enough chips to put Juanda all in. After debating for quite awhile Juanda made the call for the last of his stack with the A8 for the nut flush draw but was behind to Vaughn’s KQ for flopped trip kings. Unfortunately for Vaughn, the J on the river completed Juanda’s flush allowing him to double up and leaving Vaughn with around 12k in chips after the hand.
Players already eliminated from the Shootout include Chris “LUHMAN” Martin, Andy “BKiCe” Seth, Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista, Shaun Deeb, and Barry Greenstein.
Action is close to getting underway in day 2 of Event #10 the $2.5k Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better tournament. 108 of the initial 388 players remain and Jordan Rich is currently the chip leader with almost 46k. Other notable players include Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson and Scott Clements along with many live pros.