WSOP 2008
Busting Before the Bubble
by Crystal on 06.25.08, 2:48 am
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin was recently eliminated from the PLO8 tournament about 20 players short of making the money. Vengrin (pictured left) had been nursing a short stack for some time now. We’ve seen players often stack their chips in a pyramid shape, but Vengrin had so few in front of him that his pyramid of chips were stacked only 1 chip high.
With the blinds at 500/1k a player in late postion raised to 2.5k and was called by the button, Dan “Stainley88″ Adams who was in the sb, and Vengrin who was in the big blind. Vengrin seemed reluctant to call preflop but getting very good odds he elected to toss in the extra 1.5k in chips to see the flop which came K
4
2
. Adams checked and Vengrin threw in his last 4.7k in chips. The original raiser made the call and both the button and Adams folded. Vengrin said “I have a set” as he tabled his 9
644 and his opponent flipped over his AK72 and commented, “well I need a king or a little card.” Unfortunately for Vengrin the K fell on the turn leaving him drawing to the one remaining 4 in the deck to make quads but the river was the 5 and he was sent to the rail.
Eric “Rizen” Lynch was also knocked out just short of the money when his flopped set of aces were rivered by another player who made a flush along with the nut low.
82 players remain and the tension in the blue section of the Amazon room has risen as players try to fight (or slide) their way into the money. Play has slowed as the bubble approaches but with short stacks at many tables the bubble is likely not far away.
In the green section of the Amazon room John Phan has just captured WSOP gold for the 2nd time in less than a week as he captured the win in event #40, the 2-7 Triple Draw event. More than six hours passed between when the 4th place finisher was knocked out and when Phan finally claimed the bracelet and the $151,896 first prize.
P5er Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo is now heads up with Frank Gary in event #41’s final table and after just doubling Gary up the two are nearly even in chips, Tamayo having the slight advantage. This heads up match is sure to be exciting and we’ll keep you updated as it progresses.
Minieri Steamrolling on Final Table Bubble
by AdamJ on 06.18.08, 3:29 am
Nearly ten feet away from about a dozen fans watching his every move, Dario Minieri’s aggressiveness had the floor staff searching for chip racks.
With chips stacked six racks high and a colony of chips left on the felt in front of him, Minieri (pictured right) has seen his chip stack go from 300k to 1.8 million in the last two rounds of the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31.
Minieri has been raising nearly every pot and his fearlessness has got him busting opponents with hands as weak as middle pair that were good.
Minieri’s aggressiveness has even made Scotty Nguyen merely an onlooker sitting to Minieri’s right. Despite not playing many hands, Nguyen’s mouth was as active as always, reporting to the players at the other table about Dario’s demolition derby.
“The young gun is taking em’ all down baby,” said Nguyen in his standard high pitch tone.
Play is down to one seven-handed table, breaking when one more opponent busts. Minieri has roughly a third of the chips in play.
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak busted out right before the consolidation when his 3-bet all-in preflop with AK was called by 88 and Rusnak failed to improve taking home 38k.
Rusnak’s stack had been on a nosedive prior to his elimination, going from 650 to 200k after he lost two preflop all-in hands with his pocket tens to pocket kings and his pocket jacks losing to Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer’s utg shove with pocket queens.
Justin “Fluffdog” Filtz (500k), Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer (320k), and Scotty Nguyen (400k) will also be battling Minieri’s stack to make the final table.
The $10K Limit Hold-em has come to an end and Rob Hollink of the Netherlands is the world champion. He defeated Jerrod Ankenman, co-author of the Mathematics of Poker, after a lengthy heads up match and will be taking home $496,931 in addition to the bracelet.
Shortly after Hollink was awarded his bracelet, John Phan was given a bracelet of his own for taking down the $3K No Limit Hold Em event. This was definitely the hot ticket tonight at the Rio as a crowd of people, including Joe Sebok and Jason “jp osu” Potter, gathered around Phan and his heads up opponent, Johnny Neckar.
The crowd reached its peak when it was announced by the tournament director that the two players had both agreed to move all-in dark on the next hand. The dealer then dealt out the flop, turn, and river and the two players took turns revealing their hole cards. This continued for a couple of hands, including one in which Phan doubled up when his 7 high was good against Neckar’s 2-4, before the two returned to a more conventional game of poker. Only a few minutes later the duo got it all in pre-flop with Phan holding A9 and Neckar holding QJ. An ace on the river sealed the deal for Phan and he was awarded the bracelet and first prize of $434,789.
CrazyMarco and Keller Among Chip Leaders
by Crystal on 05.30.08, 10:23 pm
With the blinds at 400/800, Chris “Genius28″ Lee and the player in the cutoff raised back and forth pre-flop until Chris put the other player all in. Chris showed AQ while the other player had KK. The flop came 36K giving the other player top set, and the K on the turn sealed the deal giving him quads. Although it hurt Chris’s stack he still has about 35k as we move into the dinner break.
The randomness of table draws brought some interesting collections of players. One table could seemingly be labeled the “live pro’s table” populated with players including Allen Cunningham, Joe Sebok, Andy Black, Tony Cousineau, Patrick Antonius, and Kathy Leibert. Some tables had higher concentrations of known online players as well with one table including Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, Brock “t_soprano” Parker, Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Ben “Milkybarkid” Grundy and Jeff Madsen.
Other tables, such as the table with Kevin “BeLOWaB0Ve” Saul, had a mixture of well-known live and online tournaments players including Shaun Deeb, Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton, John Phan, Michael Mizrachi, Minh Ly, and Dan Shak.
Among the chip leaders heading into the dinner break were Shawn Keller and Marco Johnson (pictured), who have around 150k in chips with about 170 of the initial 352 remaining.
Other notable players had the following chips stacks: Alex “AJKHoosier1″ Kamberis 18k, Isaac Haxton 30k, Shaun Deeb 20k, Chris “Genius28″ Lee 35k.