WSOP 2008
Luck of the Draw
by Jessica on 07.04.08, 6:39 pm
With a much smaller crop of internet players playing on Day 1B, it was somewhat surprising for Tom “sbrounder” West to arrive almost an hour late to the tournament and discover Shaun Deeb (pictured at right) sitting on his left. However, the two joked to each other that in some ways, it seemed kind of inevitable. The two have been bantering back and forth ever since Tom’s arrival. For a while, they were joined by railbird and aspiring poker commentator Carter “ckingusc” King. King provided PocketFives with his own comments and insights when the two got involved in small pots together and keeping Shaun entertained when he was not involved in a hand. At one point, King even heckled Deeb until he persuaded his friend to order a drink for him and save him a trip to the bar. We think Carter has gone off to find more patriotic ways to spend his 4th of July, but if we spot him wandering around the Amazon Room again, we’ll be sure to keep you posted.
We checked back in on Shaun and Tom after the break and found both sitting with their 20K starting stacks engaged in conversation. Deeb claims West has raised every single pot since coming back from break, but the hand we stuck around for Tom conspicuously folded.
Nick “gbmantis” Niergarthrecently lost a big pot when he and another player got it all in on a flop of K-8-5 with two spades with Nick holding top set of kings to the other player’s 6
7 for the open-ended straight flush draw. Nick led out at the flop, the other player raised, Nick moved all-in, and the other player made the call. A 4 fell on the turn and Niergarth’s chips fell from almost 20K to just over 8K. He has since worked his way back up to 10.5K, but he still has a lot of ground to make up.
Here are some chip counts we spotted an hour into Level 2:
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 34K
Todd “DanDruff” Witteles - 31.5K
Paul “Come On Phish” Lieu - 31K
Mike “SirWatts” Watson - 30K
Derek “arodss3″ Buonano - 25.5K
Peter “Nordberg” Feldman - 25K
Stu “thedonator” Paterson - 24.5K
Blair Rodman - 23K
Todd “nsxt2″ Arnold - 23K
Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert - 21K
Matt “SamENole” Smith - 18K
Steve “gboro780″ Gross - 16K
Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman - 13.5K
Theo “pitrounder” Tran - 12K
Tim “EightLarge” Vansant - 11.5K
Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski - 9K
Brian “Wing-n-prayer” Reingold - 5.5K
Micah “mordan” Hendrix - 4K
Little and Jaka Moving Up
by AdamJ on 06.30.08, 4:44 pm
Chips are flying in the early levels of the 1.5k NL WSOP Event #52 and many P5er’s are reaping the benefits in the 2700 player capped field.
Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka (pictured at right) won a 7.5k pot when his all-in 1500 bet on the river was called by his opponent on a 9
9A3
7 board. Jaka tabled the J9
and scooped the pot.
Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little busted an opponent when he raised to 300 in the 50-100 level and got re-raised to 900 by an opponent in late position. Little effectively put his opponent all-in for his remaining 2k stack and his opponent called with QQ, way behind Little’s KK. The board ran true for Little, whose stack sits around 5.5k.
Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth got shortstacked early but won a race early in an all-in preflop confrontation with his KQ running down his opponents 99, increasing Niergarth’s stack increased to 1700.
Shane “shaniac” Schleger and Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista will have to battle back from rough starts as Schleger sits with 1k and Batista at 2k. Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski’s stack has been reduced to three green 25 chips but is in way better shape than Adam “Roothlus” Levy, who busted out early.
Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh and Matt “All In At 420″ Stout have chipped up a little in the first few levels with Slaubaugh at 3300 and Stout at 3600.
Niergarth Hits the Rail
by Crystal on 06.14.08, 5:02 am
Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth is out of event #23 the $2k NLHE in 11th place. As we reported earlier he lost a large amount of chips when he doubled up an opponent who held QQ to Niergarth’s AQ but since then Niergarth had been doing his best to claw his way back up the chip count with some well timed aggression.
In one hand, the chip leader Andrew Jeffreys raised to 40k preflop and Niergarth who was next to act immediately pushed all in. Everyone, including Jeffreys folded and Niergarth took down the pot.
Not long after that hand Nick limped under the gun and the player on the button raised to 55k. Action folded back around to Nick who stated he was all in and the button went into the tank claiming he knew that Niergarth held a big pair. The button eventually folded and Niergarth showed his QQ as he scooped the pot.
While his aggressive style was working well so far his next push didn’t have a pleasant outcome. Andrew Jeffreys raised preflop and as before Niergarth pushed all in but this time was insta-called by Jeffreys who held the AA which dominated the 87 of Niergarth. The flop came with the J22 lending no help to Niergarth’s hand. The T on the turn gave him a gutshot straight draw, but the 5 on the river sealed his fate and sent him home in 11th place worth $29,108.
OMGClayAiken Sings Final Song
by Jill on 06.14.08, 4:00 am
In Event #25, the heads-up field continued to decrease as Alex Jacob (pictured at right) defeated his opponent with an ace kicker after some serious chipswings. Anna Wroblewski, however, managed to donate her previously huge chipstack to Scott Montgomery; she was finally eliminated when Montgomery caught two pair on the turn to advance to the next round. Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond met a similar fate when his pocket nines couldn’t beat Jonas Entin’s pocket tens. Justin Bonomo also had to cash out when Jason Rosenkrantz’ ace-high hand held up against Bonomo’s KJ. Only two matches remain in play this evening; the event will resume tomorrow afternoon.
In Event #24, the $2.5K Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha tournament, the field has been reduced to two tables. When PocketFives caught up with the play, Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa remained in the middle of the pack with 110K in chips; play continued in the Brazillia room next to the $2K No Limit Hold’em event where Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth tried to defend his chipstack. Updates to continue on these two exciting tournaments as they play deeper into the money.
In other (exhausting) news, $3K HORSE tournament just entered its fourth hour of three-handed play between Marcel Luske, Doug Ganger, and Jens Voertmann.
Gbmantis Preys on TheWacoKidd; Seiver Scores
by Jill on 06.14.08, 12:06 am
After the dinner break concluded, play resumed in the Brazillia room with several PocketFivers still in play in the $2K No-Limit Hold’em event. At Table #61, Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby (pictured at left) sat short-stacked, his chip count about 35K. Aggressively pursuing more from the cutoff with the blinds at 3K/6K, he moved all in and took down a preflop pot to improve his stack to 52K.
The next hand, however, Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth on the button eyed Hamby’s stack when Hamby moved all in once again. Niergarth moved all in to isolate Hamby from the early limper, who easily made the fold. When the two flipped their cards, Hamby held QQ to Niergarth’s A-J. The board ran out AJK7J, improving Niergarth’s hand and knocking an upset Hamby out of the tournament.
Scott “gunning4u” Seiver was just crowned the champion of Event #21, the $5k No-Limit Hold’Em tournament. Seiver came into the final table as the massive chip leader holding more than 2.5 million in chips, while second place held a little over 1 million.
Seiver dominated both the final table and an action packed heads-up match that lasted only a little over an hour. In the final hand, Seiver called Dave Seidman’s preflop raise and they saw the flop come 973. Seiver bet out, Seidman raised and Seiver then pushed all in. Seidman made the call with his A7 to find that he was behind to Seiver’s K9. The meaningless 5 on the turn and 3 on the river secured Seiver’s victory. He wins the gold bracelet and $755,891.