WSOP 2008
“Whoa! Who Won that Pot?”
by Brett on 06.26.08, 11:29 pm
A large crowd gathered around Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman’s table in the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em w/Rebuys event. Freeman (pictured right), who was sitting with over 330K chips, got it all in preflop with Jeff “yellowsub” Williams and Albert Iverson, one of the tournament chip leaders. The hands:
Freeman: K
K
Albert Iverson: AK
Williams: J
J
Players from every table (including the Stud Hi-Lo tournament going on in the same room) came over to watch the pocket kings of Freeman hold as he jumped out of his seat and got a fist pound from Eric Froelich. Even Men “The Master” Nguyen walked over and asked us “How you get it in with ace-king?” Williams was eliminated in 34th place and earned $14,904.
Freeman is the first player to hit the 750K mark in the tournament and is the chip leader by over 200K. Jamie “TheChronic420″ Rosen has also made his way back to 350K by outracing Nicolas Levi. Rosen’s QQ was able to hold against Levi’s AK and Levi was eliminated.
Also holding strong with 27 players remaining are Peter “Nordberg” Feldman (260K) and Eric “E-Fro” Froelich (175K). Eliminated in the past hour were Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen, Randy “Randers” Haddox and Justin “looshle” Pechie.
The $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Low that we mentioned is now in Level 4. Bryan Micon, Chris “SKOAL” Falconer, Bryan Devonshire and Brett “Gank” Jungblut are among the early chip leaders.
“The Toilet” Makes Flush
by Jessica on 06.25.08, 10:28 pm
On a board reading J825 Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka (pictured at left) bet out 5.5K into an already large pot and Thomas Wahlroos thought for some time before moving all-in for less than 10K total. Jaka almost beat Wahlroos into the pot and turned over 24 while Wahlroos held pocket tens. The 9 gave Jaka his flush and shipped the huge pot this way, sending his chip stack up over 20K.
A table in the middle of the blue section might just put the other stacked tables we mentioned in our previous post to shame. At one point the table boasted Chris “moorman1″ Moorman, Shawn “sbuck21″ Buchanan, Eric “E-Fro” Froehlich, Shaun Deeb, and Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman. Buchanan has since busted out, but while he was still around Freeman and Froehlich tangled in the following hand:
On a board of AAA Froehlich checked and Freeman bet out 1,625 into a 2.5K pot. Eric quickly raised to 3K and Scott thought for some time before laying the hand down.
Another table vying for “Most Stacked” boasts a lineup of Jeff “yellowsub” Williams, Jamie “TheChronic420″ Rosen, Jason “JCarver” Somerville, Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach, and Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark. While Jason Carver was explaining the concept of “happiness EV” to Williams after he apparently sucked out on him in a hand, Clark and Fohrenbach went heads up to a flop in a raised pot.
The board came out 643 and Richard checked. Clark bet out 4K and Fohrenbach called. Both checked the Q on the turn and when the T hit on the river Richard checked once again. When Zachary bet 1,700 on the river, Richard laughed and uttered “wow…I can level myself ten different ways here”. He eventually made the call with pocket nines and Clark turned over 2-10. After the hand, Williams played the role of announcer when he stated, “CrazyZachary just took you straight to valuetown.”
Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn (pictured at right) has been fighting a short stack for much of the day and he has decided to take drastic measures in an effort to reverse his bad luck. He borrowed JJ Lieu’s feathery hat for a hand in which he and Kathy Leibert got it all-in preflop. Josh held A-Q while Leibert had pocket jacks. The flop came 865 and Josh looked to be in bad shape as Kathy held the J. However, the board ran out 4-7 with no hearts and the two split the pot to keep VanDuyn alive.
Josh wore the hat the remainder of the time he and JJ were at the same table and the two even joked about some sort of compensation for Lieu should the hat propel Josh to the final table. However, once their table broke, Josh returned the hat. Perhaps its good luck had worn off.
Dan “wretchy” Martin was recently eliminated when he and two other players saw a flop of 875. After the flop, Dan checked from the small blind and the player in the big blind checked as well. The third player then bet 1.7K, Dan called, and the big blind raised to 5,225. The other player folded and Martin thought some time before moving all-in for 10,225 more. The other player made the call, showing 89 to Dan’s 79. The turn and river were no help for Martin and he was eliminated.
Other players who saw their tournaments come to an end this level include Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers, Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul, and JC “PrtyPSux” Alvarado.
Here are some updated and unofficial chip counts heading into dinner break:
Jamie “TheChronic420″ Rosen - 70K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 40K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 35K
Richard Fohrenbach - 35K
Eric Froehlich - 32K
Ben “bfineman” Fineman - 30K
Amit “amak316″ Makhija - 20.5K
Jason Somerville - 20K
Matt “AllInat420″ Stout - 20K
Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista - 18K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 16K
John “apestyles” Van Fleet - 16K
“Bodog”Ari Engel - 14K
Adam “akat11″ - 11.5K
Jeremy “ChainsawJr” Menard - 10K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 6K
Online Presence in 10k Mixed Tourney
by AdamJ on 06.04.08, 10:55 pm
Despite the 10k buy-in and an eight game spread in WSOP Event #8, a handful of online players were scattered throughout the 192 player field.
There was a predictable amount of live cash game pros in the field, a group accustomed to playing all eight games which included: triple draw 2-7, hold-em, omaha 8, razz, stud, stud 8, no-limit hold-em, PLO.
There were a handful of notable tables that featured prominent online players like the table with Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman, James “mig.com” Mackey, Robert Williamson III, Chris “Genius28″ Lee (right), Chau Giang, and Tom Schneider. Another interesting table included Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, David “Raptor” Benefield, Phil Ivey and Rafi Amit.
Although this event was loaded with stacked tables none was probably filled with more recognizable names than the table with Barry Greenstein, Gavin Griffin, Andy Bloch, Ram Vaswani, Jeff Lisandro and Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko, an ultra high stakes limit hold-em specialist.
According to Patrik Antonius, Hawrilenko is one of the top four limit hold-em players in the world along with David Benyamine, Phil Ivey, and Bryce “Freedom25″ Paradis.
Other notable online pros playing in this event were Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis, Eric “E-Fro” Froelich, Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, Dario Minieri, Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, and Scott “gunning4you” Seiver.
In the $1K rebuy, Craig “Mr. Casino” Gray took a massive hit to his 600K+ stack when he ran into the AA of Lyric Duveyoung. With the blinds at 2500/5,000, Duveyoung raised to 13K and a player in middle position raised to 45K. Gray then reraised to 105k from the button and Duveyoung moved all in for nearly 350K. Gray instantly called with AK and found out the bad news. The board ran out J6238 and Gray was left with 240K in his stack. Duveyoung is the new chip leader of Event #5.
Jon “apestyles” van Fleet took out Alex Jacob shorty after at a nearby table. Jacob shoved his last 53K from the big blind with A6 and van Fleet called from the button with A2. Van Fleet, though, spiked a 2 on the flop and eliminated the 2006 USPC winner in 31st place. Ape has close to 200K going into the dinner break.
Dan “Stainley88″ Adams (right) found a way to hit the 6-figure mark for the first time by doubling up with 78. He shoved from the button and was called by the big blind with JT. Adams made a full house on the board of 73357. He then eliminated fellow online star Anirudh “BKiCe” Seth when Seth pushed his short stack forward with T4 and Adams called with A3. The A on the turn left Seth drawing dead and Adams now has 190K.
The field of 28 is still loaded with recognizeable online players, including Jeff “yellowsub86″ Williams (360K), Steve “gboro780″ Gross (225K), Amit “amak316″ Makhija (180K), Adam “Roothlus” Levy (160K) and Randy “Randers” Haddox (115K).