WSOP 2008
Around The Room
by Court on 08.23.08, 9:49 pm
The official number of players for Day 1A came in at 161, making the field a little smaller than the organizers had hoped for but not too far out of line for the expected total field of around 400. Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar is one of the recent eliminations, falling to Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld. Al had pocket aces with the A
and Vivek flopped a flush draw with the KQ. Zeidenfeld’s aces held up to send Vivek to the rail halfway through day 1A.
After adding Vivek’s chips to his stack, Alvin is now up to 75k and among the leaders. Here are some other counts from around the room:
Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld - 75k
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 60k (right)
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 52k
Louis “Mr Beeks” Werman - 46k
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 40k
Alec Torelli - 35k
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 35k
Scott “r_a_y” Montgomery - 34k
Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin - 33k
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 32k
Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little - 32k
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 29k
Jason Gray - 28k
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout - 26k
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 24k
Bryan Devonshire - 25k
Isaac “Mr Menlo” Baron - 20k
David “Bakes” Baker - 5,700
Recent Eliminations:
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar
Craig “Mr Casino” Gray
Short Stacked Shorr Looking to Chip Up
by Crystal on 07.04.08, 3:16 am
Shannon Shorr has been short stacked during this last level of the night but that hasn’t deterred him from getting involved in pots. When Shannon (pictured left) had 7.3k in chips remaining a player raised to 1.1k and Shannon pushed all in. The other player folded and Shannon added a bit more to his stack.
Soon after that hand Shannon raised to 1.1k in the hi-jack seat and the cutoff made the call. The flop came A
T4
and both players checked. The 9 came on the turn and again both players checked. When the 5 came on the river Shannon bet 2.7k and after some thought his opponent folded.
The very next hand Shannon again raised to 1.1k but this time the player to his left re-raised to 3.1k. the table folded back around to Shannon who reluctantly folded. It seems he is trying to chip up bit by bit and not risk his whole stack unnecessarily.
When PocketFives caught up to Jon “PearlJammer” Turner’s table in the Orange section, he was sitting comfortably with 51k in chips in front of him. Turner (pictured right) alerted us to another P5er still in the race for the bracelet a few tables over. Sure enough, when we caught up to the action at Steve “McNallyville” McNally’s table, the dealer laid a flop of 9T9 and Steve bet out 3,650 after one other early player checked to him. His opponent called and the dealer turned the 2. Both players checked to see the 8
on the river. Steve’s opponent, first to act, checked to him and he answered with a 5.1K bet. After quite awhile in the tank, the other player called and Steve flipped over 98 for the full house. He shipped the chips into his growing stack, which was up to 42K.
Jason Gray continues to add to his stack, most recently we caught up with him and one other player involved in a hand with the flop showing T44. They both checked and saw the 4 come on the turn. The other player bet out 1,525 and Jason called. WHen the K fell on the river the other player checked over to Jason who bet 2.6k. The other player went into the tank for a bit before finally making the call. The other player showed 55 for fours full of fives, but Jason held the KQ for fours full of kings and he took the pot. He now has almost 40k in chips and will be now able to keep an eye on his twin brother Craig “MrCasino” Gray as they are now seated at tables right next to each other and keep stepping away from the table to update each other (as seen in the picture at right). Craig is sitting with around 23k.
Below are some other notable chip counts as play begins to wind down for the night. Players have a little less than an hour to go before day 1a will officially be in the books.
Tim “tmay420″ West - 71K
Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 52K
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner - 51K
Steve “McNallyville” McNally - 42K
Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan - 19K
Barry Greenstein - 9.5K
Mo’ Money, No Problem
by Jill on 06.28.08, 3:05 am
The grind continued in Event #48, the $2K No-Limit Hold’em tournament. Several PocketFivers continued to chip up over the last level and build their stacks to surpass the current average stack of 34K.
Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade (pictured at left) continued to win small pots and build his stack ever higher; he was up to 48K at the end of Level 9. He said that his strategy continued to work, especially in one hand where he showed pocket ladies after he induced a fold and the table gave him props.
David “ComptonMasta” Barter reported that he was very thankful for his new table draw: “I have the best table… ever,” he joked. As PocketFives watched, it definitely seemed to be some recreational poker - the table was loose and the chips were flowing. For example, in one hand, David raised preflop to 2.7K when he was in early position. The player on the button raised to 5.5K and the big blind pushed all-in for 3K more. After awhile in the tank, David folded his hand and watched the action - A-8 versus total rags. The A-8 managed to river a straight and David started his theatrics: “Ace-eight?! Are you serious? I can’t believe you’d reraise me with that garbage?” He stormed off from the table, smirking and reported to PocketFives later that he’d also held A-8 but was enjoying the theatrics. From under the gun on the very next hand, David raised it once again to 2.7K and took down the pot uncontested. He flipped over A-Q and the table laughed with him.
Meanwhile, Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski was rising up the chip counts and managed to accumulate from 30K to over 50K. He reported to PocketFives that in one big hand, he bet out 2.6K with 9T and a player on the button re-popped him for 6.2K more. The flop came Q-7-2 and both players checked. The turn, a 6, inspired both players to check once again. Gary rivered a 9 and his opponent led out with a suspicious 9K. Gary called him down and his opponent instantly mucked.
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson has also been gathering chips up left and right. When PocketFives inquired how he did it, he simply responded, “I got lucky. A few times.” The most notable of Marco’s lucky hands was when he got it all-in in a 3-way pot for 80K with pocket tens versus one player’s pocket kings and another player’s pocket aces. Marco’s stack reached as high as 160K, but he took a small hit recently and now sits with 130K.
Notable chip stacks in Event #48:
Eric “jakz101″ Crain (the current chip leader) - 210K
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson -130K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 95K
Adam “akat11″ Katz - 50K
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 50K
Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade - 48K
Dan “wretchy” Martin - 46K
Daniel “voff” Deveau - 43K
Jon Wein - 37K
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 29K (pictured at right)
David “ComptonMasta” Barter - 28K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 26K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 24K
Scott “ssitron” Sitron - 12K
Recent eliminations include Jason “JCarver” Somerville, Bryan Micon, and Tim “TMay420″ West.
Craig “MrCasino” Gray was eliminated in 27th place from the $1.5K Stud Hi/Lo event when his four flush and gut shot straight draw failed to materialize into anything against his opponent’s two pair. This marks Craig’s 5th cash of this WSOP and adds another $3,638 to his tournament winnings.
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline’s run in the $5K 6-max No-Limit Hold’em Event came to an end when he was eliminated in 25th place, earning $20,430. Shannon Shorr was also another player who was eliminated in the past level.
21 players remain and here are some of our most recent chip counts:
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 840K
Jason Gray - 600K
Davidi “legrouzin” Kitai - 545K
Steven “CornellFiji” Ware - 200K
Alex Jacob - 172K
CrazyMarco, Roothlus Chip Up
by Jill on 06.28.08, 12:30 am
Players recently returned from their dinner break in the $2K No-Limit Hold’em event, ready for action. The original field of 2,317 has been reduced to 480 in the last level, condensing play to one section of the Amazon Room. The average chip stack sat at 18K.
Several PocketFivers made moves to chip up, including Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, who has built a fortress of chips and is near the top of the official chip counts with 73K. Adam “Roothlus” Levy (pictured at left) also made small moves to increase his stack. In one example of position play that we witnessed, Levy min-raised on the button and got two callers. After the flop, he bet out to take down the pot uncontested. As we watched, his strategy of taking down small and medium-sized pots was working - he moved up to 27K in chips.
Meanwhile, PocketFives caught up to Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade’s table as he went all in for 13K on a board of 9K2 against one other player. His opponent, sporting an Intellipoker patch, asked him, “What? Do you have a king? A flush draw? You can’t have a flush draw!” before folding his hand. Tristan looked up and grinned as he took down the pot. Carter “ckingusc” King sat across from Tristan at the table, nursing a short stack of 10K. He accosted two PocketFives staff members in his quest to find out who Tristan was. He succeeded as Tristan finally introduced himself and crisis was averted. Settle down, boys - we’re covering you both.
Other recent drama included the elimination of Stu “thedonator” Patterson, who sat in the big blind with 7K in chips behind. He jammed all his chips in the middle and was instantly called by the small blind. When Stu flipped over AJ, he sighed and found he was behind the other player’s A-K. The board was no help and Stu made his way to the rail.
Brett “gank’ Jungblutt was recently eliminated from the $1.5K Stud Hi/Lo event in 54th place. His finish was enough to garner him $2,450. Craig “MrCasino” Gray is one of 38 players remaining in the event. When we last saw him, he was scooping a pot and increasing his chip stack to 40K.
Meanwhile, the $50K HORSE event continues on with Day 3 of play and Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein is still towards the top of the leaderboard. Several notable young players saw their bracelet dreams come to an end today including Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Steve Sung, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan.