WSOP 2008
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 9
8
5K
4 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 K
86J board Deeb led for 1,800 and Sebok 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.
Stacked 5k Mixed field, Sowers Bad Beats Dicken
by AdamJ on 06.03.08, 1:27 am
For those trying to game select WSOP tournaments to play, looking for fields ripe with weak players to enhance their chances, the 5k mixed hold-em event would fail miserably.
The 332-player field read like a who’s who list of poker professionals from both live and online communities.
Multiple tables had four to six recognizable names in poker and some tables were stocked with a bevy of big names like the table that featured Barry Greenstein, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Phil Hellmuth, Hoyt Corkins, Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman, and Amit “Amak316″ Makhija.
Ulliott had the distinct pleasure of sitting to Hellmuth’s right, prompting him to attach a piece of paper over his left ear that read “bullshit deflector.”
Greg “FBT” Mueller , last year’s 5k mixed hold-em 2nd place finisher, drew one of the tougher tables in the field with Jon “PearlJammer” Turner (pictured at right), David “Raptor” Benefield, Corey “ugotpzd” Carroll, Gavin Griffin, and Andrew “Good2cu” Robl.
It didn’t take long for Mike “SowersUNCC” and Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken to bump heads, a clash that left Dicken exiting the table talking to his former tablemates about the upcoming rebuy event.
With blinds at 200-400 in the limit round, Sowers raised to 800 from middle position and Dicken reraised to 1200 out of the blind. Sowers put Dicken all-in for his last 300 and Dicken was shocked to see that his Q8 was dominated by Sowers A8.
‘When you go all-in with Q8 its more likely your not dominated,’ lamented Dicken, as he stood up awaiting his fate.
The board brought no hope for Dicken and he was eliminated.
A hand minutes earlier between Sowers and Dicken played a bigger part in his departure however.
With blinds still at 200-400 in the limit round, Sowers and Dicken got involved in a capped pot preflop where Sowers got all-in on the flop.
On a KKT flop, Sowers found himself in a cooler with AK, trailing Dicken’s TT. After a baby card dropped on the turn, Sowers hit a miracle K on the river.
Another table included a diverse collection of poker players from around the world in both live and online realms with Roland De Wolfe, Noah “Exclusive” Boeken, Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton, former world champion Greg Raymer, and last year’s 5k mixed hold-em champion and youngest bracelet holder, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis.
It didn’t take long for the affable De Wolfe to get ribbing from the table after his AQ beat his opponents AA in an all-in preflop hand in the NL round after De Wolfe’s second queen dropped on the river, sending his opponent recounting the hand to a friend still in the tournament.
‘The good thing about that is that if you go on to win the tournament you won’t be able to brag about it because i’ll be able to remind you of that,’ Raymer said to De Wolfe.