WSOP 2008
Tom Getting Dwned
by Jill on 06.14.08, 11:55 pm
The Event #28 field was slowly shrinking as the $5k Pot Limit Omaha players opted not to rebuy; Chris “Genius28″ Lee and Eric “EFro” Froehlich were among the recent casualties when they chose to step aside.
At Orange Table 10, however, Tom “durrrr” Dwan (pictured at left) has rebought so many times we couldn’t keep track. He sat at a monster table in the seven seat; Joe Hachem two to his right, Gavin Smith directly to his left, and Minh Ly in the nine seat. Yet Dwan persevered and managed to take down a couple of medium-sized pots after raising and reraising every pot.
At the other corner of the PLO tournament, Table 3 was stacked with Scott “BigRiskky” Clements, Tim “tmay420″ West, and Vanessa Rousso. West managed to take down a few uncontested pots as PocketFives watched. Clements was also busy playing his position aggressively; he raised 2K after the turn on a Q
5
A
T board, saw the 6 on the river, and bet to take the pot. For the record, P5s did not witness Rousso making any aggressive calls.
Other online players were faring well in the event; here is a list of recent chipstacks:
Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond - 80K
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 65K
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements - 38K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 25K
Oh, and on Table 15 there are a few new faces. The rookie line-up includes newbies Robert Williamson III, Phil Hellmuth, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey, Sirous Jamshidi, Daniel Negreanu, Daniel Alaei, and Alex Kravchenko. They explained at length to the sizable media frenzy present how much they enjoy gold jewelry.
Loaded Field in 5k NL WSOP Event #21
by AdamJ on 06.11.08, 5:58 pm
With the second largest NL buy-in aside from the Main Event in the WSOP, tables were stacked with notable NL players from live and online scenes. The 731 player field created a handful of stacked tables throughout the Amazon Room.
P5er Court Harrington was at one of the most eclectic tables of all, sitting alongside Sammy Farha, Ari “BodogAri” Engel, Ray Davis, Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin, and Ben “Milkybarkid” Grundy. Harrington has emerged from the tough draw with one of the biggest stacks at his table, doubling his 10k starting stack to over 20k.
Ray Davis busted before the dinner break when he closed the action on the flop after a player bet into the field and Grundy called and Davis called on a J
92 flop. When the K dropped on the turn, the flop bettor led big again on the turn, Grundy folded, and Davis tanked for a few minutes.
Shortly after the player mentioned to Davis that he should try to make the first break, Davis called with QQ, ahead of his opponents JT. Davis was sent to the rail when the 3h dropped on the river. P5er Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks drew a tough starting table as he was up against three players with NL championship titles in Gavin Griffin, David Chiu, and Glen Chorny, a trio with 13.5 million in tournament winnings between them.
No table featured more notable players than Cory “ugotpzd” Carroll’s table, featuring Chris “Genius28″ Lee, Brian Devonshire, John Robert Bellande, Andrew “good2cu” Robl, and Richard “Quiet Lion” Brody. Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter drew one of the more interesting tables as well, playing alongside cash-game wizard Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, and Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billarakis.
Phil Kills Phil
by Crystal on 06.06.08, 7:57 pm
In the $5k shootout it was a “battle of Phils” between Phil “USCphildo” Collins (pictured right) and Phil Laak. Collins got all his chips in preflop with the KT and Laak showed 66. The flop seemed promising for both as it came KT3 giving Collins two pair and Laak a flush draw. The Q on the turn completed Laak’s flush and the 3 on the river put the wrong pair on the board eliminating Collins.
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar has also been eliminated from the shootout when he got it all in with the KQ against his opponents AK. The flop of QJ2 gave Vivek a pair of queens to take the lead. A meaningless 8 came on the turn but the river was the T giving his opponent broadway and knocking Vivek out of the tournament.
Nearby Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy seemed to be in good spirits and put in a raise preflop. The player on the button began playing with a stack of his yellow (1,000) chips but eventually folded as did the rest of the table. Josephy, upset that no one called, jokingly said “You got me so excited when you got out those yellow chips! I’m so mad I’m not going to show now!”
Chris Vaughn tangled with John Juanda again and this time it was Vaughn who was all in preflop. He was ahead holding the AQ to Juanda’s AT and his hand became even stronger as he made broadway on a flop of KJT. The 3 came on the turn, but Juanda’s good luck kicked in again and the Q on the river let him catch up and chop the pot with Vaughn.
Players in the shootout have continued to disappear from the blue section of the amazon room, with some tables having already completed play for the day. At the end of the 2nd break Joe Sebok is chip leader at his table which is four-handed and Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert (pictured left) is heads-up with a signifigant chip lead. Chris “genius28″ Lee, Amit “amak316″ Makhija, Thayer Rasmussen, and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul are more of the players that have been eliminated.
For those players who manage to win their first table of the shootout today, a payday of at least $16,920 will be headed their way.
All Mixed Up in the Mixed Event
by Crystal on 06.05.08, 1:41 am
There was some confusion early on as to how the levels in the $10k Mixed event would go. Some players were under the impression that there would be groupings of games per each 20 minutes of play, but in actuality each table deals eight hands of each game before moving on to the next. As a result, tables in this tournament area might all be on different games at the same time as a result of how quickly or slowly hands progress. The dealers and staff seem to be doing a good job so far of keeping the limits for each game as clear as possibly but obviously with that much going on it can easily become confusing for even the most experienced players.
Two players who got involved in a hand were Chris “Genius28″ Lee and WSOP legend Doyle Brunson. Doyle hasn’t been able to get his stack moving in the right direction yet today but when the board read AJ5Q3 during the O8 section he tabled his AKT6 for the nut straight and Lee showed 7632 for a 6532A low. They scooped up a few more chips as a result of a third player who stuck around to the river only to find his hand was no good.
P5er Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis (pictured right) wasn’t having as much luck in the razz section at his table. His opponent led the betting almost every round and Billirakis was showing 45JT (in that order). His opponent seemed upset on 7th (having been dealt a 3rd ace) and when they both checked he showed hole cards of the AA5 to go with his face up 4TA7 for a T754A low which was apparently good enough to take the pot away from Billirakis who mucked.
Event #7 - $2K NLHE Update:
At the end of level 8, 240 players remained of the original field of 1,592. Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman and Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert continued to incite action at their table, Leo chipping up to a very healthy 56K, more than twice the average stack. Meanwhile, we caught up with Zak “traaction” Gilbert as he was pushing his table around at seat 6, accumulating a stack of 55K.
Event #7 held a green chip race-off at the end of the level, pausing the tournament just before the 20-minute break. Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar hangs around for the next level, his stack thinning at 15K. Play resumes momentarily and we wish all the remaining P5ers the best of luck!
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).