WSOP 2008
BadBeatNinja Disappears Into the Night
by Jill on 07.06.08, 2:00 am
Level 4 of Day 1C saw a rash of eliminations starting with Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire (pictured at right). Devonshire had been towards the top of the leaderboard for the majority of the day, but lost a monster pot for his entire stack when he and another player got all-in with the same nut straight, but his opponent had the freeroll to hit the spade flush. The spade came on the river, Bryan was eliminated, and Day 1C found itself a brand new chipleader. Unfortunately, no one found REAL ULTIMATE POWER as a result.
Phil “USCPhildo” Collins was also eliminated this level when he and Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin got involved in a three-way hand. With the blinds at 150/300 ante 25, Eric raised to 800 under the gun and Collins reraised to 2.4K. The player in the small blind and Baldwin both made the call. The flop came down 9
82
and both the small blind and Eric checked to Phil. Collins thought for at least a minute before moving all-in for nearly 15K. The player in the small blind tanked briefly before moving all-in behind Phil and Eric quickly folded. Collins showed A
Q and needed some help against the other player’s JJ. The turn and river came 42 and Phil gave us a friendly, “See you next year!” as he headed for the door.
Amit “amak316″ Makhija, who had been shortstacked for much of the level was also eliminated when his two pair failed to hold against his opponent’s straight draw.
Meanwhile, Ladbrokes team pro John Kalmar (pictured at left) has been struck by lightning. With a board that read AJ23 and a more-than-14K pot in the middle, John’s opponent bet 10K and he went in behind for his entire 37K stack. After calling over the floor to determine if he could expose one of his cards to Kalmar, his opponent tanked for a long time before the clock was called. Finally, he made the the call and John flipped over pocket twos against his opponent’s A3. When the 3 came on the river, John was sent to the rail on a stretcher.
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline has apparently developed quite the table image at his table. A player in early position raised to 900 and three other players called behind him. Kline then moved all-in from the small blind for 8,650. The initial raiser seemed quite frustrated with Kline’s move and accidentally revealed the K
as he tossed his cards in the muck. Everyone else folded as well and the man claimed he folded AK.
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (pictured at right)reported during Level 4 that he considered one of his recent plays an emotional victory; he finally won a race. Gary told PocketFives that he held A-Q and bet 900 preflop, only to be met with a 4,400 raise from one opponent. He managed to flop an ace and get his chips in good, winning the pot and chipping up to 24K before the last level of the evening. He and Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti have both been checking PocketFivesLive for action updates on their iPhones, especially now that David “davidp18″ Peters is also at their table. We’re wondering what the over/under is until they realize that Tom “werpennstate23″ Cummings has also sat down to the table.
Meanwhile, Hung “HQrespect” Nguyen hovered around the 20K mark and saw a flop with four-way action. The board came KJA and all players checked. The T came on the turn and Hung raised to 1K. Two players called and the 8 came out on the river. Again, Hung bet 1K to induce a fold from one other player, but one opponent called him, flipping over K-Q to Hung’s QQ. They chopped the pot and Hung added a few chips to his stack.
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania added 10K to his stack after picking up a pot at the end of Level 4. With 5K in the middle preflop, Charania called a bet of 1.5K on a board of KT2. The K came on the turn and Charania called a bet of 2K. On the river, Charania’s opponent check-called a bet of 4K and Charania showed K8. The other player mucked. He is now at 88K, and at the opposite end of the table from Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal. “I don’t want to double him up,” Charania said of the short-stacked Agarwal as they both went on a 20-minute break.
Also afraid of doubling others up at his table was Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell, who sat at an intimidating table with Michael Binger and David Singer. He reported to PocketFives that he managed to chip up to 45K with pocket aces versus K-J on a jack-high flop. He lamented that he hadn’t gotten the full value for his aces, however, because he put his opponent on a set. Because of the recent addition of Michael Binger to the table, he said he planned on blinding off to the end of the day. We can’t blame you, Justin!
We caught Ezra Galston taking a small hit to his stack on the last hand before break. On a board of A435Q, Galston was facing a bet of 2.7K from an opponent. He contemplated for three minutes before making the call and mucked his cards when his opponent showed AJ. Galston is now at 19.5K.
Here are some notable unofficial chipstacks at the end of Level 4:
David “Bakes” Baker - 130K
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania - 88K
Darren Elias - 86K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 67K
Tom “werpennstate23″ Cummings - 49.5K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 45K
Felipe “Improved” Montenegro - 37K
Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo - 34K
Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong - 32K
Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti - 30K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 27.5K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 27.5K
Jason “mkind0516″ Laso - 27K
David “Davidp18″ Peters - 26K
Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich - 26K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 24K
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 24K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 23K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 22K
Patrik “Hoffs28″ Hoffman - 21K
Hung “HQrespect” Nguyen - 20K
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 16.5K
Scott “stsitron” Sitron - 14K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 13.5K
Main Event Day 1c!
by Brett on 07.05.08, 2:45 pm
The insanity begins today. More than 2,000 players have registered for Day 1c already with two hours of registration still open. There’s a possibility more players will participate today than the first two days combined, making for what should be a hectic and exciting day at the Rio.
Some players in attendance already are Darren Elias, Phil “USCPhildo” Collins, Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal and Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell, who is seated at at table with bracelet winner David Singer. We’re expecting a massive crowd of P5ers today, so be sure to check in frequently for updates!
Mike “SirWatts” Watson finished up last night as one of the chips leaders of Day 1b with 104,425. Here’s a look at the official chip counts of some others that made it through to Day 2:
Derek “arodss3″ Buonano - 82,000
Paul “ComeOnPhish” Lieu - 78,675
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 62,750
Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert - 41,275
Bobby “Gettin Deep” Hodson - 28,350
Brian “Wing-n-prayer” Reingold - 27,350
Stuart “zpaceman” Taylor - 26,300
Greg “okstate345″ Cox - 20,925
Shaun Deeb - 16,550
Steve “gboro780″ Gross - 15,250
Stu “thedonator” Paterson - 10,700
Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski - 10,250
Matt “SamENole” Smith - 8,225
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
Mineri Looking to Run Deep
by Crystal on 06.17.08, 4:20 pm
Day 2 of event #31, the $2.5k NLHE six-handed tournament, is set to restart at 2:30 pm today with Dario Mineri (pictured left) 2nd in chips with over 191k. Only 73 out of the original 1012 players are left and they will play down to the final 9 tonight before play concludes for the evening. Other players still in the hunt include Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko (78k), Billy Westom (70k), and Aditya “intervention” Agarwal (46k). Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant was eliminated last night in 80th place for a payday of $4,189.
Also starting at 2 pm is the final table event #29 the $3k NLHE with Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin coming in as the chip leader with over 1 million in chips. Tony “Bond18″ Dunst is also at the final table with 333k which is good enough for 8th out of the 9 remaining players but we wouldn’t be surprised to see him build that stack up and finish even higher once play begins.
In the Amazon room event #32 has just taken an unscheduled 30 minute break to accomodate for the estimated 400 people that are still trying to register for the event. This seems to be the first time the WSOP has had any trouble with registrations this year. We’ve heard from one of the players who registered late for the event that the computer system was registering players as alternates rather than at empty tables and then the entire system actually crashed. We imagine this may be the cause of the backup in registrations today but if we find out otherwise we’ll let you know.
Before the break began, Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan was short stacked after losing a few hands but was then able to double up back to around 2.5k when he turned a king high flush against his opponents top pair. Other P5ers spotted in the field include Court Harrington, Adam “adam_mc” McGregor, and Phil “USCphildo” Collins.
Hanks Having a Drink on Scotty
by AdamJ on 06.17.08, 3:36 am
Ordering his standard round of Michelob’s, Scotty Nguyen found a few takers to partake in his palate cleansing.
P5er Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks (pictured right) took part in the festivities about 30 minutes after the players made the money in the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31.
On the very next hand, unaffected by Nguyen’s generosity, Hanks raised Nguyen’s big blind and took the pot down as Nguyen was more worried about tipping the waitress for the drinks.
After getting a little ribbing from Nguyen, Hanks showed Nguyen his QQ as the two had been very cordial with each other at the table.
Hanks built his stack up to 70k before doubling up a short stack to his left and currently sits at 50k in the 600-1200-100 level.
Phil “USCphildo” Collins (pictured below) probably felt in the mood for a few rounds after he lost a 140k pot in his first hand at the table to tournament chip leader Alan Shahar.
Shahar raised to 4k preflop and Collins called. On a AJ9 flop, Collins check called 7k. Collins check called Shahar’s 14k bet on the 3 turn. The 5 dropped on the river and Collins checked to Shahar’s 44k bet.
After tanking for a few minutes, trying to decipher what this man sitting behind a mountain of unorganized chips held, Collins called and mucked when Shahar showed A9 for a flopped two-pair that ran into a backdoor flush.
Collins later said he had AQ and said if he’d won that pot he thought he had a strong chance to make the final table with his stack.
He also mentioned that since he under-repped his hand so much by checking all three streets, he thought that he had a reasonable chance to induce a bet from a worse hand cause his hand looked so weak.
Collins rebounded in the following rounds, increasing his stack from 12k to 24k.
Here are some notable stacks of the 79 of 1,012 left with the average chip stack at 64k.
Dario Minieri - 90k
Jason Mercier - 80k
Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko - 65k
Aditya “intervention” Agarwal - 55k
Shannon Shorr - 46k
Mark Vos - 35k
Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant - 25k
Dave Ulliott - 12k