WSOP 2008
In The Money
by Court on 08.27.08, 12:13 am
With the elimination of Ali Eslami everyone left in the tournament is in the money. Play will continue tonight until there are only 27 players remaining. The final 27 will return tomorrow to play down to the final 6.
High school buddies Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson and Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark (pictured right) are both in the money and after the redraw are sitting side by side. Ben “bfineman” Fineman is also in the money along with Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn, Kyle WIlson, Amit “Amak316″ Makhija, and Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham.
Here are some chip counts as in the money play continues:
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 500k
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 480k
Kyle Wilson - 440k
Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham - 390k
Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark - 250k
Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn - 115k
Makhija To The Top
by Court on 08.26.08, 9:21 pm
With 530k chips Amit “Amak316″ Makhija is now the chip leader in the Legends of Poker WPT event. The tournament is still 12 players from being in the money with 48 players remaining and the top 36 getting paid. Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson and Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham are also near the top, both recently cracking the 400k mark.
Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn (right) was in the high 300k’s but has dropped back about 100k. Here is a rundown of some chip counts.
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 530k
Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham - 425k
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnons - 410k
Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn - 250k
Kyle WIlson - 175k
The tournament is still laden with top pros and some interesting table matchups are emerging. Marco Johnson has Allen Cunningham on his right and Ali Eslami a few seats to his left. Makhija’s table is loaded with known pros, including Erik Seidel, Erick Lindgren, and John Phan. VanDuyn gets Layne Flack and Max Pescatori at his table. Other known players still in include Maria Ho, Lee Markholt, Adam Weinraub, Mark Seif, and David Chiu.
Final 50, No Bear
by Court on 08.26.08, 8:57 pm
The money bubble gets continues to approach as the Legends of Poker is down to the final 50 players. Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein (left) was among the short stacks, hanging on with just under 50k while the blinds jumped to 2k / 4k with a 500 ante. He was all in, and all out, minutes into the level.
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Amit “Amak316″ Makhija, Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn and Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham are all cruising along with over 300k. VanDuyn was able to double through Antonio Esfandiari (since eliminated) in a battle of the blinds. Antonio raised from the small blind and Josh defended from the big blind with A5. On the A-5-3 flop the players ended up all in and Josh’s two pair held up against Antonio’s AJ to send a 360k pot VanDuyn’s way.
Greenstein was all in with pocket aces in a three way pot with a chance to pick up a pot that would put him back to 100k. His aces ended up falling to a flopped straight though and the Bear became the 51st place finisher.
The tournament is now 14 players from the money.
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 J
8
6 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 Q
6223 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 T
82T5 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
Gomes, Johnson Go 1 and 2 in $2K Event
by Jessica on 06.30.08, 12:24 am
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson’s (pictured at left) tournament run also came to an end when he finished 2nd in the $2K No Limit Hold Em event. Johnson and fellow Pocket Fiver Alexandre “allingomes” Gomes battled back and forth in their heads up match before Gomes gained the upper hand when he cracked Johnson’s pocket aces with AT after the board ran out KT3TJ.
A few hands later, Marco moved in for the remainder of his chips with QJ and Alexandre quickly made the call with AK. After a flop of 432 and an ace on the turn, Johnson was drawing dead to a 5 for a chop. When the river came 4, Gomes scooped the pot and the victory, sending his large Brasilian contingent into a roar of applause. Gomes earned $770,540 for his finish and Johnson took home $491,273 for 2nd.
Gerry “TheGatherer” Kane’s run in the $1.5K No Limit Hold Em event has come to an end. Gerry was in the big blind when he and another player got it all-in on a board of 543K. Kane flopped two pair with his 34, but he needed to fill up in order to best the other player’s 67 for a flopped straight. The 2 on the river was no help to Kane and he was eliminated in 45th place, earning $10,759. Taylor “tdomeski” Douglas was also eliminated recently. He finished in 72nd place, good enough for $7,420.
The $50K HORSE event lost a couple of players before pausing the tournament to take a dinner break. Huck Seed was eliminated in 7th place and Barry Greenstein was out shortly afterwards in 6th when his pair of aces in Stud 8 were no match for Scotty Nguyen’s full house. Shortly after pocketing his $355,200 prize, Barry registered for his third tournament of the day and is now playing in the $1.5K HORSE event.
A handful of P5er’s are left in the 10k PLO WSOP Event #50. With a small 381 player field, not many tables featured players that were known from either live or online poker. However, Tim “TMay420″ West had a below average stack of 23k at a table full of live pro’s with Tony Cousineau, Tony G, Dan Shak, and Joe “The Elegance” Beevers from the Hendon Mob.
Jason “JP OSU” Potter just bricked out on a massive multiway 90k pot when his freeroll with pocket aces and a nut flush draw didn’t come to fruition. Potter’s 34k stack is below the 48k average. Ryan “Daut44″ Daut also just lost a big pot when his opponent rivered a nut flush and Daut led for 8k on the river and called another 12k more when he got raised. Daut had 44k earlier in the level and currently has 14k.
Eric “Rizen” Lynch is nursing an extreme short stack at 13k with blinds at 400-800 but remains optimistic at a table that includes Noah “Exclusive” Boeken’s massive 105k stack and Chris Moneymaker.
“It can change in a hurry,” Lynch said. “It will in one way or another shortly.”
Here’s a list of other notable chip stacks left:
Shawn “buck21″ Buchanon - 120k
David “Raptor57″ Benefield - 110k
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements - 64k
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen - 55k
Dario Minieri - 43k
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 19k