WSOP 2008
Ponying Up Chips
by Jill on 06.12.08, 4:06 am
When PocketFives caught up with Event #22, the $3k HORSE players were riding hard in the saddle, trying to collect chips. Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy (pictured at right) was seated at a table with Marco Traniello and a very tired Ted Forrest, who made it to heads-up play in last night’s final table of the $2K Omaha Hi/Lo event. Josephy referenced the poker dictionary entry for “crying call” when he called off a few thousand chips on trip-3s to trip-aces (two face-up!), lamenting “I just couldn’t help myself!” before his table broke and redrew seats. Thankfully, his stack remained strong at more than double the average.
Meanwhile, Stu “The Donator” Patterson and Eric “EFro” Froehlich were seated next to each other at blue table #10, trading stories and smirks as Eric took down a mid-sized pot in the stud rotation, hitting a club flush to cripple the woman two places to his right. His stack climbed to 18K, nearly double the average.
Chip stack updates for Event #22:
James “mig.com” Mackey - 28K
Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul - 25K
Zak “traction” Gilbert - 23K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 23K
Eric “EFro” Froelich - 17K
Mark “pokerbok” Vos - 11K
Stu “THEDONATOR” Patterson - 11K
Justin Bonomo - 8K
Thayer Rasmussen - 2K
On the way out of the Amazon room, PocketFives spotted Brett “Gank” Jungblut hamming it up at a cash game table. Let’s hope his luck holds better when he gets it in good there!
Levy Advances; Wolpert, Sebok Heads up in Event #11
by Brett on 06.06.08, 9:20 pm
Adam “Roothlus” Levy advanced to Day 2 of the $5K NLHE Shootout when his pocket jacks held against pocket sevens. Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert (pictured right) and Joe Sebok are heads up with opponents as we put this post together and both have decent-sized chip advantages. Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy is still five-handed at his table and appears to be very short. He lost a big pot earlier to Beth Shak when he was forced to fold pocket kings on a board that read 9
8
3.
The remaining P5ers clashed with one another in the $1.5K short-handed event. First it was Tom “titantom32″ Braband eliminating Ben “bfineman” Fineman when Braband’s KQ
got the best of Fineman’s T
T with Fineman all-in for his last 30K preflop. Braband spiked a queen on the flop and built his stack to over 100K.
Then Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter (left) took out Antuan “bigboybunk” Bunkley with a two-outer, encapsulating what was a very tough day for Bunkley. With the blinds at 1.5K/3K, Porter called a 25K shove from Bunkley with pocket fives and cracked his QQ with the 5 on the river.
Things have since cooled down for both Braband and Porter. Braband lost a 120K pot when he called a reshove with 77 and ran into QQ. The queens held and Braband was left with around 50K. Tom has since been chipping up, however, utilizing an effective re-steal stack to pick up about 20K chips in a matter of minutes without having to show a hand down.
Porter lost 40K shortly after Braband’s big hit. He raised to 9K from under the gun at 1.5K/3K and the player to his left shoved for 32K more. Porter reluctantly called with pocket eights and wasn’t surprised to see the AA flipped up by his opponent. The board bricked for Porter and he was left with a little over 80K.
The tournament just went on a 20-minute break with 24 players vying for the top prize of $372,929.
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.
Devin Porter–Master Salesman
by Jessica on 06.05.08, 5:17 pm
On a board reading AQ52T Devin “tranquilchaos” Porter (pictured at right) made a 2,200 bet on the river into a pot of around 1400, effectively putting his opponent all-in. The other player tanked for some time before making the call. Porter showed 22 for a turned set and his opponent mucked. As Porter, who is wearing a Cardrunners patch on his shirt, stacked his chips, another player at the table commented that he would join Cardrunners if it meant he could flop sets all the time. Devin assurred the man that if he plays online and is logged into Cardrunners at the same time, he will flop all the sets he needs. After the hand, Porter’s stack is up to 5K and his side pot of new member registrations is growing.
Some other players off to an early start include Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul with 8K and Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar with around 4K. Vivek was recently moved to Kevin’s table and the two have been chatting it up. With the blinds at 50/100, Vivek raised to 250 on the button and the player in the big blind min-raised to 500. The big blind only had around 1.5K behind and checked the flop. Vivek bet around 700 and insta-mucked when the other player check raised all-in. After the hand, Saul said he knew the all-in was coming based on the behavior of the player and Vivek responded, “I am just an internet donk.”
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy (pictured left) is seated right near the entrance of Amazon room and is being acknowledged by several passersby as they enter. The warm welcome has done wonders thus far. Josephy, down to 1700 chips, reraised from the button at 50/100 blinds to put himself all in. The original raiser from the cutoff called with QQ and had Bax’s AQ dominated. Josephy’s life heater continued (kidding, of course) as he spiked an A on the river and doubled up to 3500.
Adam “Adam_mc” McGregor chipped up to over 4K when his pocket eights held against AK all in preflop. He’s seated in the Red section of the room near a table featuring Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson and Steven “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer.
Falconer and Clements Hanging In There
by Crystal on 06.05.08, 5:08 am
In the $1.5k O8 tournament Scott “BigRiskky” Clements and Chris “SKOAL” Falconer (pictured at left) are amongst the 28 players remaining.
These two players tangled in a pot together with Clements leading the betting the whole way. The board read 654A6 and while Scott was set to take the whole pot on the turn with his KK32, Falconer took the high side of the pot on the river with his AQ62.
The blinds are currently 3k/5k with 5k/10k betting limits so the short stacks are going to have to make moves quickly if they want to chip up and have a chance at the final table.
In Event #8, the Mixed event the 109 players left are in the last level of play for the night and a number of pros and popular online players have already been eliminated. Amongst the casualties are Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, and David Williams.
Players still in the hunt include Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, and James “mig.com” Mackey along with numerous live pros.