WSOP 2008
Patience Pays Off
by Crystal on 06.19.08, 9:02 pm
The 36 remaining players in the $1.5k PLO w/Rebuys tournament are now in the money. Jeff “yellowsub” Williams and Jamie “TheNew” Robbins were both short stacked during hand for hand play, but their patience in waiting for the bubble to burst has now paid off in a big way as all players left are now guaranteed at least $16,849.
During the hand that burst the bubble, Kyle Kloeckner who took 2nd place in event #24 the PL HE/O event, raised to 12k on the button, and both the small blind and big blind called.
The flop came Q
J8
. The small blind checked and the big blind bet 34k only to see Kloeckner raise to 100k. The small blind folded but the big blind decided to call off the rest of his chips. The big blind was ahead already and had some huge draws as he held the AKQ
7 for a pair of queens, and a royal flush draw while Kloeckner’s 99
85 was going to need some serious help. That help came in the form of the 7 on the turn and 6 on the river to give Kloeckner a runner-runner straight and to knock the big blind out in 37th place. Kloeckner is the current chip leader with 680k. Other chip stacks after the bubble burst were:
Jamie “TheNew” Robbins - 37k
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 31k
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 120k
Steve “Cornell Fiji” Ware was just eliminated in 35th place in the same hand as Clonie Gowen and they will both receive $16,849.
The $10K Omaha Hi/Lo Championship Event is now underway in the Amazon Room and Greg Raymer is trying to get used to being sandwiched between young players Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke and Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan. Greg and Jordan recently tangled in a hand when Raymer raised from the cut off and Morgan made the call from the button. A third player who had limped in early position also made the call and the trio saw a flop of K86. The first player bet and both Raymer and Morgan called. After the 5 on the turn it checked around to Jordan who bet and both players called. Jordan bet again when a J fell on the river. The first player folded and Raymer called out “crying call” as he threw his chips in the middle.
When Jordan showed A743 for an eight high straight and an A-3 low, Raymer mucked and Jordan got to scoop the large pot. Raymer was a little surprised to see Morgan’s starting hand and made a comment to the other players at the table. Jimmy Fricke chimed in to warn Raymer and the other players that, as long as he stays at the table, they are likely to see more where that came from.
Finally, here are some updated chip counts from the $1.5K NLHE event :
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 28K
Daniel “voff” Deveau - 20K
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar - 20K
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 20K
Bryan Micon - 17K
Phil “USCPhildo” Collins - 16K
Justin “WPTHero” Rollo - 15K
Ryan “AllInAt420″ Stout -12K
Joe Sebok - 10K
Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks - 8K
The Comeback Stud
by Crystal on 06.08.08, 8:17 pm
Dario Mineri (pictured at right) is trying to climb his way back up the leaderboard of the $10k Stud event after his stack fell to a mere 6.5k. He had called a player’s all in bet on 4th street and Dario showed the (JJ)KJ while his opponent held only a pair of aces. Unfortunately for Dario, his opponent caught another ace and Dario failed to improve, allowing the other player to double up. He’s now built his stack back to a much healthier 38k at the beginning of today’s first break and seems to be picking his spots well. Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich was eliminated earlier today from this event along with pros Doyle Brunson, Greg Raymer, and Bill Chen. There are currently 58 players remaining but only 16 will cash in this event.
With 13 players remaining, John “jdawg0913″ O’Brien has taken a couple of big hits over in the $1.5k LHE event. He lost a pot when his KQ wasn’t good enough to best the A8 of his opponent on a J837T board and then he flopped a set of 8s when the same player from the previous hand flopped a set of 9s and took another chunk of O’Brien’s chips. He is now down to around 140k in chips which is good for 8th out of 13 remaining as the players go on a 20 minute break. We still believe that the PocketFives.com t-shirt John has been religiously wearing to this event will bring him good luck and help him make the final table!
In the $5K NLHE Shootout Event, play commenced nearly three hours ago with Tim “tmay420″ West and former Quizbowl champ Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert facing Philip Tom, Thomas Roupe, former hockey pro Greg “FBT” Mueller, and Sirous Jamshidi. No one has been eliminated yet in the play, but several tense moments have occurred in the last hour of play.
Sirous Jamshidi managed to double up through West, flopping two pair to West’s JJ. Three hands later, Wolpert checked the flop from the big blind after calling a 70K preflop raise. Wolpert’s pocket eights were good enough to hold up, winning him about 300K in chips. His fans on the rail went nuts; other news sites are labeling them “raucous” and “wild” — only to be expected by the PocketFives crowd.
Later, West doubled through Tom Roupe when West held 88 to Roupe’s 77. West now holds a stack of over 1M in chips, yet after more than 90 hands of play, all six original players at the final table remained.
Stacked 5k Mixed field, Sowers Bad Beats Dicken
by AdamJ on 06.03.08, 1:27 am
For those trying to game select WSOP tournaments to play, looking for fields ripe with weak players to enhance their chances, the 5k mixed hold-em event would fail miserably.
The 332-player field read like a who’s who list of poker professionals from both live and online communities.
Multiple tables had four to six recognizable names in poker and some tables were stocked with a bevy of big names like the table that featured Barry Greenstein, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Phil Hellmuth, Hoyt Corkins, Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman, and Amit “Amak316″ Makhija.
Ulliott had the distinct pleasure of sitting to Hellmuth’s right, prompting him to attach a piece of paper over his left ear that read “bullshit deflector.”
Greg “FBT” Mueller , last year’s 5k mixed hold-em 2nd place finisher, drew one of the tougher tables in the field with Jon “PearlJammer” Turner (pictured at right), David “Raptor” Benefield, Corey “ugotpzd” Carroll, Gavin Griffin, and Andrew “Good2cu” Robl.
It didn’t take long for Mike “SowersUNCC” and Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken to bump heads, a clash that left Dicken exiting the table talking to his former tablemates about the upcoming rebuy event.
With blinds at 200-400 in the limit round, Sowers raised to 800 from middle position and Dicken reraised to 1200 out of the blind. Sowers put Dicken all-in for his last 300 and Dicken was shocked to see that his Q8 was dominated by Sowers A8.
‘When you go all-in with Q8 its more likely your not dominated,’ lamented Dicken, as he stood up awaiting his fate.
The board brought no hope for Dicken and he was eliminated.
A hand minutes earlier between Sowers and Dicken played a bigger part in his departure however.
With blinds still at 200-400 in the limit round, Sowers and Dicken got involved in a capped pot preflop where Sowers got all-in on the flop.
On a KKT flop, Sowers found himself in a cooler with AK, trailing Dicken’s TT. After a baby card dropped on the turn, Sowers hit a miracle K on the river.
Another table included a diverse collection of poker players from around the world in both live and online realms with Roland De Wolfe, Noah “Exclusive” Boeken, Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton, former world champion Greg Raymer, and last year’s 5k mixed hold-em champion and youngest bracelet holder, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis.
It didn’t take long for the affable De Wolfe to get ribbing from the table after his AQ beat his opponents AA in an all-in preflop hand in the NL round after De Wolfe’s second queen dropped on the river, sending his opponent recounting the hand to a friend still in the tournament.
‘The good thing about that is that if you go on to win the tournament you won’t be able to brag about it because i’ll be able to remind you of that,’ Raymer said to De Wolfe.