WSOP 2008
Marco Busto, TV Play
by Court on 09.27.08, 1:59 pm
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson (left) seems to have joined Jason “JP_OSU” Potter on the rail. Johnson’s seat is empty, with no chips on the table in front of it, and his location at one of the featured tables makes it very unlikely he has been moved. Most likely explanation - he has been eliminated from the World Series of Poker Europe, presented by Betfair.
While Marco was getting rid of his chips, Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman was helping other people get rid of theirs, though Moorman did give over 10k back in the last hand before his whole table was relocated to be one of the feature tables. Moorman had chipped up to almost 80k after winning a nice pot off of Max Pescatori. On a K
J
4
7 board Max check called a bet of 3,200 from Chris. Max again check called on the 6 river for 6,600. Moorman, shaking throughout the hand as he put each bet out, steadied up a bit as he turned over his AA
. Max mucked his hand and Chris raked in the pot.
Not too many hands later the floor came over to move Moorman’s table to the feature table area. In the last hand before the move, Moorman wound up in a pot with Mike Bebber. Everyone else at the table, with the exception of Ted Lawson had already left the area before the Moorman / Bebber hand got interesting.
On a flop of T83 Moorman (right) flat called a bet of 2,500 from Bebber. With the TV cameras watching closely for whatever reason, the dealer put out the 8 as the turn card. Bebber led for 3,500 and Moorman, again with shaky hands, raised to 9,500. Bebber didn’t take long to announce raise and put in the additional 6k to make the call and then saying all in as he pushed his stack of around 20k remaining chips towards the middle.
Moorman folded, but since the action on the hand had been taped for possible use on TV, the producer requested both players show their hand to his portable hole card viewer. The idea is to show the cards to the reader without exposing them to the table, but either Moorman and Bebber did not understand or didn’t really care since the rest of the table was already gone. Moorman showed his Q-7 for nothing but queen high, while Bebber had the best hand but also thought he was bluffing at the pot with his A7. Moorman still has over 60k after losing the pot.
Chip Counts Around the Casino:
Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman - 63k
Scott “R_A_Y” Montgomery - 27k
Ben Grundy - 27k
Isaac Haxton - 27k
Scott Fischman - 27k
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 20k
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 19k
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 16k
Isaac “mr. menlo” Baron - 14k
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 7,200
Chips Moving Around Early at WSOPE
by Court on 09.27.08, 9:40 am
The action in the first level of many deep stacked, big buy in tournaments in slow. So far the World Series of Poker Europe, presented by Betfair, has not been a slow starting main event. There have been plenty of chips moving around and large pots, even a few bustouts.
Players start the tournament with 20k in chips and the first blind level is 50/100. In the very first few minutes of the tournament Peter “#1Pen” Neff (right) and Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar both lost small pots. Amit “Amak316″ Makhija, Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, and Isaac “mr. menlo” Baron were all involved in larger pots.
Neff called a 300 raise from and under the gun Andy Bloch. On the A76 flop both players checked and with the 2 on the turn Neff called a 300 bet from Bloch. The river was the 6 and Bloch led for 500. Neff called and Andy turned over his AT. Peter mucked his hand sending the 2k pot to Bloch in the first few minutes of action.
Aguiar is at a table with Isaac Haxton. For the first few minutes of play, Isaac, Jonathan and Barney Boatman were the only players at the table. As the late arrivers were coming in to fill the table Jonathan found himself in a pot with Boatman. On the river with a board of 7542K Aguiar led for 1k and Boatman raised to 2,600. Jonathan tossed his hand in surrendering the pot.
After flopping a set on a KJ6 board Makhija (left) was able to get action from his opponent to build up a nice pot. The other player check called a 1,600 bet on the T turn and then again check called for 4,500 on the 8 river. A calm Makhija raked in the 15,000 chip pot after showing his 66 to add to his stack early on and close in on the the 30k mark. At the table behind Makhija, Marco Johnson was able to pick up a small pot with a 1,050 chip bet on a K-7-6-2 board.
Isaac Baron decided to surrender his hand on the river of an A83T4 board when he was check raised. The pot had about 6k in it and Isaac bet 2,700 when it was checked to him. The other player then raised to 11k and after brief thought Isaac tossed his hand in.
Dropping Fast
by Court on 08.27.08, 7:28 pm
In the first 2 hours of play the field of 27 has been reduced to only 15. Amit “Amak316″ Makhija finished the first level with a commanding chip lead of over 2 million chips. He has more than double his next closest competitor, Trong Nguyen. A few players come in just above 1 million along with Trong, including Kyle Wilson and Layne Flack. Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark is also near the top of the chip counts and right around the 1 million chip mark.
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson (left) was one of the casualties in the early going, dropping in 20th place when his A6 from the small blind ran into the pocket aces of Trong Nguyen in the big blind. The 20th place finish brings 21,125 for Johnson.
Amit Doubles, Graham Crumbles
by Court on 08.27.08, 3:15 am
After stalling out at 28 players remaining, the field finally got down to the final 27 with two big hands happening at the same time. With hand for hand play in effect due to the money jump between 28th and 27th the four remaining tables were all playing one hand each. Once play got down to 27 the day was complete and all remaining players will return tomorrow to play down to the final 6.
On the table with the least chips, Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham ended up all in for the last of his just over 200k chips against Kyle Wilson. Matt had AK but was up against Wilson’s pocket kings. The kings held and Matt found himself out in 28th place for $14,085 while Wilson jumped to 619,000 chips.
Across the room Amit “Amak316″ Makhija (left) ended the day in high fashion. After flopping a straight on a T98 board Amit was willing to get it all in with Trong Nguyen. The 3 and the 4 filled out the board, missing Nguyen’s few outs and Makhija doubled up to an impressive 842,000 to end the day.
The “Crazys” also survived the day. Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson and Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark sat side by side for the last few levels of play, and the two friends made it through the day both finishing over 300k. A quiet Ben “bfineman” Fineman (right) was also able to hold on and will be back for day 4 play with one of the shorter stacks, but only a double up away from being right back in it.
Here are some of the end of day counts:
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 842,000
Kyle Wilson - 619,000
Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark - 383,000
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 310,000
Ben “bfineman” Fineman - 159,000
Full chip counts for the final 27 are available here.