WSOP 2008
Peter Cries De Wolfe
by Jill on 07.04.08, 12:58 am
Now back from dinner break and midway into Level 4, some players were feeling a bit squeezed by their short stacks and put to difficult decisions. PocketFives caught up with Dan “wretchy” Martin (pictured at right) in the Green section of the Amazon room sporting a stack of 2.8K, asking P5s to abstain from counting it out. It seemed like his friendly table image was working to his advantage, however, laughing as he shoved and raking in a few uncontested pots as we watched. He was definitely in emergency mode, but we all saw what happened to Matt “MattG1983″ Graham after he was down to one big blind last night — it won him a bracelet!
Nearby in the Green section sat Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul and Andy “BadgerPro” Schultz. We caught up with action at the table in a very interesting hand where Kevin was put to a decision for most of his chips. Before the flop, both the big blind and the small blind were in the hand, as well as two early limpers. The cutoff raised to a total of 3.1K with about 3K behind and Kevin sat on the button. Shuffling his chips, Kevin queried his opponent: “What was your name online?” He answered, “CG2212. Does that help you?” Kevin joked, “No.” His opponent took his sunglasses off and Kevin paused quite awhile to count out his chips before throwing his hand in the muck. Ultimately, one of the players in the blind shoved and got the call from the original raiser; the blind held A-K to his opponent’s pocket fours. Kevin, relieved, explained that he held A-Q and caught the sunglass tell; when the flop spiked an ace, his opponent was sent to the rail.
Peter “number1pen” Neff (pictured at left) told PocketFives at dinner break that he couldn’t wait for his table in the Orange section to break. Considering the lineup has featured everyone from David Benyamine to Brock “t_soprano” Parker to Roland De Wolfe to Gavin Smith, who can blame him? Upon returning from break, he first won a decent-sized pot off Brock with a full house. Then, with the blinds at 150/300 with an ante of 25, he picked up aces and raised preflop to 850. The small blind called and Roland De Wolfe made it 3K from the big blind. Peter shoved all in for the remainder of his 18K chips. The small blind folded and Roland called off his last 6K with pocket queens. Neff’s hand held up and subsequently, he got his wish when the table broke. Considering his hot streak, did he speak too soon?
Eric “jakz101″ Crain managed to double his stack when he got all his chips in preflop with K
Q
against his opponent’s 66
. The board ran out 943Q9 and Eric’s queens and nines were good enough to take the pot; he has continued to build since then. In a recent hand, the board read 98667. Although we missed the action, it appeared that both players checked it down the whole way. When they both checked on the river Eric said “Dude, I flopped a straight but I’m going to check.” He flipped over his 7
5 which was good enough to take the pot. As he raked in the chips he said “I was hoping to get in a check-raise on the flop, then I didn’t like the turn, and I really didn’t like the river. Did you have outs?” The other player laughed and said no, so it seems that if Eric had fired off a bet at some point he would have taken the pot regardless. Eric is now sitting with 40K and in good spirits.
Jason Gray and one opponent saw a flop of JT3. When Jason checked, his opponent bet out, only to have Jason go all in for 13.5K. The other player made the call with his QJ only to find that he was behind Jason’s KK. The A on the turn and 7 on the river were harmless to Jason’s kings and he doubled up to around 30k.
Anna Wroblewski has been busy building up her big stack. Her most recent addition in chips came when another player pushed all in on a flop of T95. Anna debated for awhile before making the call with the KT for a pair of tens with a flush draw. Although she was behind her opponent who held the T9, the K fell on the turn, giving Anna a better two pair and the 5 on the river changed nothing so Anna knocked out a player and her stack grew to over 70k.
Ken “isuck123″ Goldin (pictured at right) did not fare as well during the last level. He reported that he had pocket ladies in the big blind and reraised Kido Pham on the button from 1K to 3.6K. When the flop came 7-high with two clubs, Ken shoved for 14K more and Kido called with 94. When the turn spiked the A, Ken was sent to the rail.
Also eliminated in the level was Joe Sebok, whose day came to an end when he shoved the remainder of his chips in preflop with pocket jacks and ran into another player’s pocket queens. The player with queens ended up making quads and Joe was eliminated.
DABADEST Run of Cards
by Jill on 07.01.08, 10:18 pm
Play in Event #53, the $1.5K Limit Shootout tournament is now down to mostly two- and three-handed tables, with several PocketFivers engaged in heads-up play. Contenders still in the running just paused for a 20-minute break to clear their heads before getting back in the game tonight.
We caught up with Tim “tmay420″ West (pictured at right), who was defying his 8:1 underdog status and hanging in there with 3.5K in chips. Meanwhile, Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg battles Andy Bloch and his beat-up hat, also an underdog with 3:1 odds. However, two other P5ers were making extraordinary moves and fighting up the chip counts to dominate their tables.
Matt “MattG1983″ Graham sat behind a fortress of chips with 22.5K, bullying his opponent, who was on life support. In one hand, the board ran out K5364 with Matt betting and his opponent calling on every street; Matt’s king was enough to take down the pot. The hand just before the break commenced, however, managed to nearly double his opponent. On a board of 487A, Matt bet the turn, his opponent reraised, and Matt called. The 2 on the river was irrelevant, as his opponent held A7 for two pair and took it down. Matt will return after the break to try and polish off his opponent.
As we reported earlier, Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson (pictured at left) rallied his short stack up to 12K; in the last level, he went on a run of cards and worked it back and forth, managing to achieve 20K in chips at one point. His opponent kept making crying calls on river bets - in one hand, he bet 800 after the river and his opponent called on a 96T82 board. Darren showed down the QJ for the nut straight and raked in his chips. He also picked up several suit combinations of A-7 in the last level, showing it down three times to win pots.
Darren’s opponent jokingly accused the dealer of having romantic inclinations towards DABADESTCHIC as she switched places with an incoming dealer since his run of cards had been so good. “I swear you’re going out with the guy,” he said. “You gotta give her a kiss when she leaves, for goodness’ sakes!” Dan “wretchy” Martin and Faraz “The Toilet-0” Jaka were on hand to rail Darren, who apparently had a deep run in the Bellagio tournament last night.
Good luck to all players remaining in the event as play continues!
Sitron Making a Run in 1.5k NL
by AdamJ on 07.01.08, 9:00 pm
Scott “ssitron” Sitron (pictured left) has nearly quadrupled his stack since P5’s last caught up with him a few hours ago.
Sitron currently sits with 250k in Day 2 of the 1.5k NL WSOP Event #52, a stack way above the 82k average with 98 players left with blinds at 1.5k-3k-400.
Sitron said he has been running good and has won a trio of all-ins when he was ahead each time with Q-Q vs 5-5, J-J vs 5-5, and TT vs A-5 suited.
Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh just dipped below his 170k starting stack after he lost 20k in a pot where he re-raised an under the gun raise and got 4-bet and flatted the raise, check-folding on a T94 flop.
George “TheButler” Dietz has moved up from his 35k stack a few hours ago, currently at 70k. Dietz got a favorable seat draw with his back only a few feet from the rail where his friends Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul and Dan “Wretcy” Martin followed the action.
After starting the day with only 9k, David Daneshgar has held on to the 110k stack he accumulated in the first few hours.
Ben “bfineman” Fineman was one of the early winners of the 1.5k Limit Shootout WSOP Event #53. A handful of other P5er’s are still in the hunt as well.
Tim “TMay420″ West is 3-handed with 13k of the 29k in play and Scott “gunning4you” Seiver is heads-up with 18k. Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson has mounted a big rally in heads-up play, running a 4k stack up to 12k. Brock “t_soprano” Parker is down to 3-handed play but is very short at 2k and Justin “zeejustin” Bonomo is 3-handed with 8k. Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke is 3-handed with 5.5k.
CrazyMarco Running CrazyHot
by AdamJ on 06.29.08, 5:33 am
With 18 players left in the $2K No Limit Hold Em Event, the players redrew for new tables and one was heavily loaded with Pocket Fivers. Table #1 boasts Dan “Wretchy” Martin, Eric “jakz101″ Crain, and Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson (pictured at right). While a short stacked Martin has generally stayed out of the way of the other two players, Crain and Johnson have tangled in several situations and Johnson appears to be coming out on top every time.
A few hands after the new tables were seated, Crain raised to 60K with the blinds at 10K/20K ante 3K and Marco moved all-in from the button for just over 400K. Eric laid his hand down without much thought. An orbit later, Eric again raised to 60K and, once again, Johnson moved all-in behind him. This time around, Crain tanked for several minutes debating with himself whether or not to call Marco’s 508K bet. He tried to induce a reaction from Johnson by asking, “do you have two tens?” Marco remained perfectly still until Crain decided to fold. As Johnson was scooping his chips, Eric joked, “ok Marco, you can breath now.”
Their interactions were far from over when Eric raised to 70K and, rather than moving all-in, Marco reraised to 200K from the small blind. Crain quickly made the call and the two saw a flop of T54. Marco quickly moved all-in and, once again, forced Eric to fold. After the hand, Crain was down to 290K.
Eric Crain was not Marco’s only victim this level though. Johnson raised to 51K on the button and the player in the small blind reraised to 156K total. Marco moved all-in an the other player quickly made the call with AK. Marco showed QJ and both hit the flop of AKJ hard. Marco picked up even more outs with the Q on the turn and a J on the river gave Johnson a boat and sent the other player to the rail. When the jack came, Marco noticeably jumped in his seat when he realized he had won the hand. One of the other players jokingly remarked, “don’t act surprised Marco…you knew you were going to get there somehow.” After that hand, Marco increased his chip count to 1.55 million.
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson busted out in a battle of the blinds when his opponent made it 50k from the small blind and Nelson moved all-in for 120k out of the big blind. Nelson hit a big flop when it came 867 but failed to improve going out in 17th place.
Dan “Wretchy” Martin was the next to exit when he reraised a middle position 52k raise for an additional 205k from late position. Martin’s opponent called with AK, ahead of Martin’s J9. Martin turned an open-end straight draw but didn’t improve, bowing out in 16th place.