WSOP 2008
Dreams Dashed or Doubled Up?
by Jill on 07.09.08, 9:47 pm
Chris “cbdr3799″ Dombrowski continued to be very active in the first half of Level 8 and PocketFives caught up to the action at his table as he was raising under the gun to 2.3K. Three players called in position - both the blinds and the button. The flop came T
9
J
and he bet 5K into the pot, getting one other call. When the turn brought the J
, Chris fired out 8.5K more and his opponent called again from the small blind position. At the 6 on the river, Chris moved all in for 9.5K more and got a call; he showed down KQ and the other player mucked. Chris doubled and now sits at 55K.
A few tables over, Frank “Round42″ Rusnak (pictured at right) reported that he’s the object of batting practice — one of his tablemates just happens to be Jose Canseco’s ex-wife and baby’s momma, Jessica. The pair were confronting each other as PocketFives watched Jessica reraise his preflop 1.9K bet to 6.8K. She stared him down and he gave her a hard time, but flashed a big smile to PocketFives.
Frank recently took down a decent sized pot when a player under the gun raised to 2.1K, Rusnak called in middle position, as did the player on the button. The flop Q75 and all three players checked. The 7 on the turn prompted the initial raiser to check again and Rusnak bet out 4.7K. The player on the button then reraised to 9.7K and Frank thought momentarily before making the call. Both checked after the K came on the river and Rusnak announced, “I have a pair.” The other player stared at him, waiting for him to turn over his cards. Frank revealed 99, his opponent mucked, and he is now up to 80K.
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania had courteously doubled up several players at his table throughout the day today and recently he finally had the same courtesy extended back to him when he and another player got it all-in on a flop of 952 with Mohsin holding pocket sixes with the six of hearts while his opponent had A-K with the king of hearts. No heart came on the turn or river and Charania doubled up to 49K.
Despite starting the day with a less-than-average stack of 23K, Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert has been on a hot run of cards, elevating his stack all the way up to 123K. Although it would be easy for him to tell PocketFives he’s just been playing above the rim and chipping up, Wolpert said that he’s just been sucking out, including snapping of pocket aces with his pocket tens.
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (pictured at left) has just been eliminated from the Main Event — and in an ugly fashion at that. We caught up with Bogdanski betting 12K on a board of A43J5 and his opponent moved all in, having Gary covered. Gary leaned back in his chair and said “I can’t fold, I call,” to which the other player replied “You lose.” He flipped over 42 for a straight flush and Gary angrily showed his T8 before heading out of the Amazon Room.
Dan “voff” Deveau avoided disaster just before his table broke in the Brasilia Room. With blinds at 400/800, Deveau raised to 2.3K from under the gun and a player in late position raised to 6K. Deveau asked for a count of his opponent’s stack before making the call with QQ. The board came out T36 and Deveau checked to his opponent, who bet 10K. Deveau quickly folded and the other player showed his AA. Dan is still stitting comfortably with 70K.
Here are some other unofficial chip counts in Level 8:
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 184K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 180K
David “Raptor517″ Benefield - 175K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 160K
Darren Elias - 155K
David “Bakes” Baker - 155K
Aaron Steury - 140K
Brandon Schaefer - 137K
Brian “tsarrast” Rast - 135K
Aditya “intervention” Agarwal - 134K
Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert - 123K
David “davidp18″ Peters - 111k
Mike “RunScreamin” Herder - 110K
Dylan “ImaLucSac” Linde - 110K
Jeff “jpapola” Papola - 95K
Thayer Rasmussen - 84K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 80K
Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti - 80K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 80K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 80K
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 75K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 65K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 62K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 61K
Dag Martin Mikkelsen - 58K
“BodogAri” Engel - 57K
Chris “cbdr3799″ Dombrowski - 55K
David “HosniMubarak” Tazbaz - 53K
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania - 49K
Nachman “thelandlord” Berlin - 48.5K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 40K
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 40K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 35K
Jason “strassa2″ Strasser - 35k
Bryan Micon - 35K
Ben “BSUChamp” Grice - 33K
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements - 32K
Senovio “DorsalFin” Ramirez - 30K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 28K
Tracey “xtrACEy” Nguyen - 27K
Brett “Gank” Jungblut - 24.5K
Scott “mindwise” Pendergrast - 23K
Bryan “bparis” Paris - 20.5K
Tony “Bond18″ Dunst - 17K
Carter “ckingusc” King - 17K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 16K
Ladbrokes team pro Azad Pirooti - 16K
Minieri Steamrolling on Final Table Bubble
by AdamJ on 06.18.08, 3:29 am
Nearly ten feet away from about a dozen fans watching his every move, Dario Minieri’s aggressiveness had the floor staff searching for chip racks.
With chips stacked six racks high and a colony of chips left on the felt in front of him, Minieri (pictured right) has seen his chip stack go from 300k to 1.8 million in the last two rounds of the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31.
Minieri has been raising nearly every pot and his fearlessness has got him busting opponents with hands as weak as middle pair that were good.
Minieri’s aggressiveness has even made Scotty Nguyen merely an onlooker sitting to Minieri’s right. Despite not playing many hands, Nguyen’s mouth was as active as always, reporting to the players at the other table about Dario’s demolition derby.
“The young gun is taking em’ all down baby,” said Nguyen in his standard high pitch tone.
Play is down to one seven-handed table, breaking when one more opponent busts. Minieri has roughly a third of the chips in play.
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak busted out right before the consolidation when his 3-bet all-in preflop with AK was called by 88 and Rusnak failed to improve taking home 38k.
Rusnak’s stack had been on a nosedive prior to his elimination, going from 650 to 200k after he lost two preflop all-in hands with his pocket tens to pocket kings and his pocket jacks losing to Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer’s utg shove with pocket queens.
Justin “Fluffdog” Filtz (500k), Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer (320k), and Scotty Nguyen (400k) will also be battling Minieri’s stack to make the final table.
The $10K Limit Hold-em has come to an end and Rob Hollink of the Netherlands is the world champion. He defeated Jerrod Ankenman, co-author of the Mathematics of Poker, after a lengthy heads up match and will be taking home $496,931 in addition to the bracelet.
Shortly after Hollink was awarded his bracelet, John Phan was given a bracelet of his own for taking down the $3K No Limit Hold Em event. This was definitely the hot ticket tonight at the Rio as a crowd of people, including Joe Sebok and Jason “jp osu” Potter, gathered around Phan and his heads up opponent, Johnny Neckar.
The crowd reached its peak when it was announced by the tournament director that the two players had both agreed to move all-in dark on the next hand. The dealer then dealt out the flop, turn, and river and the two players took turns revealing their hole cards. This continued for a couple of hands, including one in which Phan doubled up when his 7 high was good against Neckar’s 2-4, before the two returned to a more conventional game of poker. Only a few minutes later the duo got it all in pre-flop with Phan holding A9 and Neckar holding QJ. An ace on the river sealed the deal for Phan and he was awarded the bracelet and first prize of $434,789.
Minieri and Rusnak Closing in on Final Table
by Jessica on 06.18.08, 12:46 am
A
trio of online players are making a final table run at the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31 with 18 players left. Dario Minieri (pictured right) has position on Scotty Nguyen and has Nguyen outchipped by a small margin at 300k to Nguyen’s 275k.
P5er Frank “Round42″ Rusnak has a little above average stack with 300k as does his table mate Bruno Fitoussi. Sandwiched between Rusnak and Fitoussi is Justin ”Fluffdog” Filtz, who one of the biggest stacks at the table with 493k.
Filtz has been eyeing the bracelet after turning 21 eleven days ago. Although Filtz has some impressive results online, including a 20th place finish in an FTOPS event in March, he considers himself more of a cash game player that specializes in heads-up play.
If Filtz is able to win a heads-up match in this event, he would miss being the youngest bracelet winner by one day at 21 years and 12 days.
Meanwhile the current record holder for youngest bracelet winner, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis (pictured at left) is getting low on chips in the $5K Stud8 Championship event. Steve lost a big pot when he paid off Davidson Matthew’s trip queens after his low draw developed into two pairs, fours and eights. James “mig.com” Mackey has also dropped far below his 10K starting stack. With the limits at 250-500 ante 50 and a 75 chip bring-in Billirakis and Mackey have 2.5K and 4K respectively. With the level coming to a close in less than ten minutes, the two will surely be looking for a good spot to try and double up.
One player who successfully doubled up a couple of times is Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich who was as low as 1100 chips just an hour ago. After scooping several pots with two pair when no one else in the hand made a qualifying low, Rich now has 16K. He has been involved in a number of hands and always seems to walk away with at least half the pot every time. Most recently, Rich split a large, multi-player pot with Todd Brunson when he made Qs and 8s on sixth, which was good enough for the high hand while Brunson was the only player to make a qualifying low.
Brock “t_soprano” Parker was recently eliminated from the $10K Limit Hold Em Championship Event in 5th place when his Q8 failed to catch up with Jerrod Ankenman’s A9. He earned $102,460 for the finish.
Fivers Going Strong Six Handed
by Crystal on 06.17.08, 7:19 pm
P5ers are holding strong as players continue to drop from the $2.5k NLHE six-handed event #31.
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier won a huge pot when he got all his chips in preflop against another big stack. The AK that Jason held dominated the AT of his opponent and when the board ran out A8224 Jason doubled his stack to over 200k.
Not long after that hand a battle of the P5ers nearly took place on Jason’s table. Jason raised in the cutoff and was called by Billy Westom in the small blind. Frank “Round42″ Rusnak who was in the big blind played with his chips contemplating a call but instead decided to re-raise for another 14k on top. An exciting P5 filled hand might have been in store, but Jason and Billy both folded giving Frank the pot.
Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen has also been doing well. When the button on his table raised to 3.3k preflop Keven made the call from his sb. The flop came with the 883 and both players checked to see the Q come on the turn. They both checked again and when the 4 dropped on the river Keven bet out 6k and the button called. Keven tabled the QJ for a pair of queens and the button mucked.
There are currently 47 players remaining. Chris “cdbr3799″ Dombrowski, Aditya “intervention” Agarwal (pictured left), and Michael “slugo5″ Glasser have been eliminated from today’s event but many players are still active in the field. Unofficial chip counts are listed below.
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier - 200k
Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen - 160k
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 140k
Billy Westom - 95k
Shannon Shorr - 85k
Todd “tbt4653″ Terry - 70k
Paul “uclabruinz” Smith - 62k
Ian “IanJ300″ Johns - 50k
Babes in Pokerland
by Crystal on 06.08.08, 4:04 pm
The Amazon room has quite a different feel to it today; It looks prettier, smells better, and many of the female masseuses have magically transformed into men. This is all because today kicked off the $1k Ladies NLHE tournament. The room is filled with notable female players such as Katja Thater, Susie Isaacs, Shirley Williams, Vanessa Rousso, Clonie Gowen, Jennifer Tilly, Camryn Manheim, Cheryl Hines, Kathy Najimy, and P5’s own reporter Jess Welman (pictured at right). We wish Jess the best of luck and know that today’s event will be exciting to watch!
Speaking of watching, the rails around each section of the room are filled with boyfriends and husbands watching their significant others battle it out on the felt. We can only hope that the men don’t intervene as we’re sure the ladies will do just fine on their own!
With 1,190 entries after the first hour of play they’re 96 entries short of a tie with last year’s total registration, but entries will be accepted until the end of the 2nd hour of play so we could see an even larger field this year.
In about an hour, three other events will resume play:
- The final table of the $5k Shootout where Tim “TMay420″ West and Leo “Mr Superfluous” Wolpert will be looking to claim the top prize of $477,990;
- The final two tables of the $1.5k LHE event where John “jdawg0913″ O’Brien is still in contention with Erik Lindgren, who is looking to claim bracelet #2 at this years WSOP;
- Day 2 of the $2.5k NLHE event where there are numerous P5ers still in the hunt, including Theo Tran, Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman, Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks, Aaron Been, Matt “Mattster24″ Sterling, Frank “Round42″ Rusnak, Craig “MrCasino” Gray, Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Bryan Micon, and Carter “ckingusc” King.