WSOP 2008
Strasser vs. Nguyen
by Crystal on 07.10.08, 8:43 pm
Jason “strassa2″ Strasser probably just made the ESPN footage of the main event. With the blinds at 1.2k/2.4k with a 300 ante he raised to 7k from middle position and Men Nguyen pushed all in for 20.8k more. Jason contemplated for awhile before deciding to make the call and Nguyen proudly flipped over his A
A
while Jason tabled the KT
. His chance to bust a well known pro loomed and the flop came 542. Jason would need running cards to best Nguyen’s aces but the turn brought the 8 sealing the deal. The Q fell on the river and the 60k pot was shipped over to Nguyen with the ESPN cameras catching all the action.
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (pictured right) won a gigantic pot over 200k earlier when he flatted the small blind’s raise with pocket eights in the big blind after it was folded around to the small blind. Thayer promptly flopped a boat when it came 8-4-4, trumping his opponents pocket kings. Rasmussen later got moved to a table playing alongside Brent “astrolux85″ and and Hunter THE_HUNT_D” Frey. Several other stacked tables are forming that bear mentioning. Earlier we reported on the table that contained Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert, Owen “ocrowe” Crowe and “Bodog” Ari Engel, but that isn’t the only table where you’ll find PocketFivers duking it out. Just a few tables over, Brian “Like7″ Lamanna, Aditya “intervention” Agarwal and Kush Patel are all seated together as well. Another table to watch out for boasts Tim ‘tmay420″ West, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson, and Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby.
After being merely a spectator for the first few levels, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy’s chip stack started fluctuating in big margins. Keith “damurdera3″ Ferrera raised to 5400 under-the-gun and a player in middle position shoved all-in for 20k. Josephy re-raised to 38k and Ferrera moved all-in for a total of 202k. Josephy made the call tabling pocket kings but was trailing Ferrera’s pocket aces. The hand boosted Ferrera’s stack to 409k and Josephy was left with around 60k.
Luckily for Josephy, a table change helped move his stack north. In his first orbit at his new table, Josephy raised under-the-gun only to have a player in the blind put him all-in for his last 57k. Josephy made the call and tabled pocket kings again but this time was ahead of his opponents pocket jacks. The board ran true for Josephy, although his friend Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul, watching from about 40 feet away from the rail, had thought Josephy lost given his demeanor.
“Tell him to smile next time he doubles through,” Saul said to Pocketfives. A few minutes later Saul came over to congratulate Josephy on his double up and gave him a hard time about looking glum. Given Josephy’s last level, who can blame him?
“I had a lot more,” Josephy told Saul in response to his ribbing.
There are currently only 801 of the 1307 players that started the day which means we are only 135 spots away from the money. Play has been fast and furious all day but will likely slow down as the bubble approaches.
Here are some of our most recent unofficial chip counts:
Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen - 465K
Andy “tufat23″ Teng - 350K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 330K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 320K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 305K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 270K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 265K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 225K
Hunter “THE_HUNT_D” Frey - 220K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 220K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 200K
David “Raptor157″ Benefield - 195K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 165K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 160K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 155K
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 145K
David “Bakes” Baker - 140K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 135K
Brent “Astrolux85″ Roberts - 135K
Jason Gray - 120K
Kush Patel - 115K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 110K
Bruce “Cornellxc11″ Hyde - 105K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 95K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 94K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 90K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 89K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 86K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 75K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 70K
Cody “shankingyou” Shedd - 43K