WSOP 2008
Short Stacked Shorr Looking to Chip Up
by Crystal on 07.04.08, 3:16 am
Shannon Shorr has been short stacked during this last level of the night but that hasn’t deterred him from getting involved in pots. When Shannon (pictured left) had 7.3k in chips remaining a player raised to 1.1k and Shannon pushed all in. The other player folded and Shannon added a bit more to his stack.
Soon after that hand Shannon raised to 1.1k in the hi-jack seat and the cutoff made the call. The flop came A
T
4
and both players checked. The 9 came on the turn and again both players checked. When the 5 came on the river Shannon bet 2.7k and after some thought his opponent folded.
The very next hand Shannon again raised to 1.1k but this time the player to his left re-raised to 3.1k. the table folded back around to Shannon who reluctantly folded. It seems he is trying to chip up bit by bit and not risk his whole stack unnecessarily.
When PocketFives caught up to Jon “PearlJammer” Turner’s table in the Orange section, he was sitting comfortably with 51k in chips in front of him. Turner (pictured right) alerted us to another P5er still in the race for the bracelet a few tables over. Sure enough, when we caught up to the action at Steve “McNallyville” McNally’s table, the dealer laid a flop of 9T9 and Steve bet out 3,650 after one other early player checked to him. His opponent called and the dealer turned the 2. Both players checked to see the 8
on the river. Steve’s opponent, first to act, checked to him and he answered with a 5.1K bet. After quite awhile in the tank, the other player called and Steve flipped over 98 for the full house. He shipped the chips into his growing stack, which was up to 42K.
Jason Gray continues to add to his stack, most recently we caught up with him and one other player involved in a hand with the flop showing T44. They both checked and saw the 4 come on the turn. The other player bet out 1,525 and Jason called. WHen the K fell on the river the other player checked over to Jason who bet 2.6k. The other player went into the tank for a bit before finally making the call. The other player showed 55 for fours full of fives, but Jason held the KQ for fours full of kings and he took the pot. He now has almost 40k in chips and will be now able to keep an eye on his twin brother Craig “MrCasino” Gray as they are now seated at tables right next to each other and keep stepping away from the table to update each other (as seen in the picture at right). Craig is sitting with around 23k.
Below are some other notable chip counts as play begins to wind down for the night. Players have a little less than an hour to go before day 1a will officially be in the books.
Tim “tmay420″ West - 71K
Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 52K
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner - 51K
Steve “McNallyville” McNally - 42K
Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan - 19K
Barry Greenstein - 9.5K
“All-In”
by Jessica on 07.03.08, 10:32 pm
One of the many promotional aspects of this WSOP are large ping pong paddle-esque signs bearing the All-In energy drink logo distributed around each of the tables. Whenever a player’s all-in is called by another person, the dealer at the table raises his All-In pong paddle skyward and calls out so that the media and interested bystanders can come over and see the action.
As we neared the dinner break, it seemed like the paddles were flying fast and furious and several P5ers were caught in the crossfire including Alex “AJKHoosier1″ Kamberis, Matt “AllInAt420″ Stout, Eric “E-Fro” Froehlich, Larry “larrygold” Goldstein, Mike “michnak” Michnik, Zac “iLLNuGWichee” Fronterhouse, and Anthony “D1rtyR1v3r” Nardi.
Nardi called the all-in of his opponent on a board reading A-9-9-2 and threw his hands in the air in frustration when his opponent turned over 2-2 while Nardi held A-Q. He got no help from the K on the river and headed for the rail.
One player who has been heading nowhere but up is Jon “Pearljammer” Turner (pictured at left). He doubled up early on when he held pocket queens and flopped quads and got paid off by a player holding pocket kings. With the blinds at 150/300 Jon raised to 750 in middle position and the player in the big blind called. The flop came out K97 and both players checked. They checked again when the 7 peeled off on the turn. The big blind fired out 1.5K when the 2 hit on the river and Turner thought for a minute before making the call. His opponent tossed her hand in the muck before Jon could reveal his KJ.
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen (pictured at right) has accumulated one of the top stacks in the tournament with a little over 70k. Rosen recently got involved in an interesting hand where he bet 1500 in a raised pot on a J86 flop and his opponent check called out of the blind. The turn was the K and both players checked. The river brought the J and Rosen’s opponent bet 2k and Rosen called. Both players chopped, Rosen showing QQ and his opponent the KJ.
Here are some chip counts headed into dinner break:
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner - 52K
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 43K
Tim “TMay420″ West - 41K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 40K
Brock “t_soprano” Parker - 35K
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 29K
Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little - 25K
Joe “Dyzalot” Morneau - 25K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 24K
Adam “akat11″ Katz - 23K
Shannon Shorr - 21K
Justin “looshle” Pechie - 20.5K
Jason Gray - 20K
Aaron Been - 20K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 19K
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers - 16.5K
Barry Greenstein - 15K
TJ “Doubles00ted” Slifka - 13.5K
Ken “isuck123″ Goldin - 13.5K
Steven “CornellFiji” Ware - 13K
Joe Sebok - 12K
JC “PrtyPSux” Alvarado - 8.5K
Dan “wretchy” Martin - 9.5K
Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul - 6.5K
We’ll be back with the action at the conclusion of the 90 minute dinner break.
Players Continue to Hit the Rail
by Crystal on 06.28.08, 7:35 pm
The 2,718 player field of the $1.5K NLHE tournament has already been reduced to less than 1,200 after a mere four hours of play. That means during these first four hours, an average of more than six players were eliminated every minute. Among those that have been knocked out are Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan, Anna Wroblewski (pictured below), Alex Jacob and Shannon Shorr. Shorr got the remainder of his chips in with A-7 only to run into another player’s pocket jacks. The board brought no help for Shorr and he was eliminated.
Players just went on their second break of the day; here are some notable unofficial chip counts at the beginning of the break:
Taylor “tdomeski” Douglas - 16K
Scott “thebasher007″ Stubbs - 11K
Matt “SamENole” Smith - 11K
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar - 10K
Carter “ckingusc” King - 10K
Hevad Khan - 9K
William “gptbigguy” Looper - 8K
Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks - 7.5K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 7K
Scott “ssitron” Sitron - 7K
Micah “mordan” Hendrix - 4.5K
David “seal” Eisenstein - 4K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 4K
Starting the day short-stacked, James “mig.com” Mackey hadn’t been able to get any momentum in the $50k HORSE event and finally got the last of his chips in preflop during a round of Omaha High-Low with the J754 against Farzad Bonyadi who held the AA72. The board ran out T3592 and Bonyadi’s pair of aces was best for the high and his 7532A was good for the low knocking Mackey out in 22nd place. Barry Greenstein is currently in the top five in chips with 943k while chip leader Michael DeMichele holds more than 1.5 million.
Graham Cracker Crunch
by Brett on 06.26.08, 4:32 pm
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham is the early chip leader of today’s $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-handed event. With players still making their way into the Amazon Room, Graham (pictured right) called a raise of 175 out of the big blind with 43 and another limper called. The flop brought A-3-3 rainbow and Graham led out for 300. The limper folded and original raiser called. The 8 on the turn brought a flush draw and Graham bet 1025 and was raised to 3025. Graham called and made quads when another 3 landed on the river. He moved all in for his last 6K and his opponent called and Graham showed the nuts and pulled in a pot of 20K. We missed what the other player showed, but Graham believed it was A-K.
Cody “thugmoneymakr” Slaughbaugh didn’t have the same fortune. He got all of his chips in on a J65 board with A8 against J5 and was unable to make his flush. He, along with Jordan Morgan, Scott “gunning4you” Seiver and Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski were all eliminated in the first two levels. Bogdanski ran a set into a higher set after all the chips went in on the flop.
Eric “Rizen” Lynch is up to 15K after he knocked a player out of the tournament with KK against QQ. All of the chips went in preflop and the board revealed A5327. Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan has also chipped up to 19K after making a king-high flush against a queen-high flush and getting it all in on the turn.
Omaha Field Shrinks
by Jill on 06.20.08, 2:43 am
The $10K Omaha Hi-Low World Championship event marched on as 198 players remained of the original field of 235. Recent eliminations include Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, Thayer Rasmussen, and Jordan Morgan. When the board read J932, Fricke went all in on the turn and was called. He showed down QT98 for the straight draw, but his opponent held AQJ3 for two pair. When the J came on the river, his opponent made a boat and eliminated Fricke from the bracelet running.
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements thought he was in good position to build his short stack back up to his starting 20K when he bet out on an AQ4 flop with AK in the hole. He got two callers and bet again when the K came on the turn only to be raised by the player acting after him. Both the third player and Clements made the call, but Clements was left with only 200 chips. Everyone checked when a 9 came on the river and Scott showed down his two pair. The player who raised the turn revealed KK-4-X for a turned set. Scott was left with 1/4 of a big blind, but has been slowly rebuilding by splitting multi-way pots and has worked his way back up to 2K.
BigRiskky will have to make a move soon to continue the running for yet another final table this WSOP. Meanwhile, Brock “t_soprano” Parker and James “mig.com” Mackey both continued to play in the safe zone with 15K; Matt “mattg1983″ Graham picked up a pot going into break and has 26K; Stu “thedonator” Patterson held his own 20K stack next to Phil Ivey. Brett “Gank” Jungblut was sporting a 29K stack and spending much of the last level in wit-for-wit conversation with Annie Duke. Admittedly, it seemed like she was having a hard time taking him seriously while he wore a plastic WSOP souvenir cowboy hat.
Event #32’s $1.5K No-Limit Hold’em tournament came to a close this evening and Luis Velador took home his first WSOP bracelet and $573,734. The Californian entered his first final table as chip leader and managed to close the deal; congratulations to Velador on his win in this big field of over 2,300 players!
Meanwhile, in Event #34, the $1.5K Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys tournament has nearly reached the final table. Kyle Kloeckner still maintained a huge stack with more than 700K in chips. However, Tim “tmay420″ West took a hit from Layne Flack and was down to 160K, the next-to-shortest stack left. All players are guaranteed $36,109 and are battling down to the final 9 this evening in preparation for tomorrow’s final table.
The early chip leader of today’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, Craig “MrCasino” Gray, has just been eliminated. With the blinds at 500/1K, a player under-the-gun raised to 3K and it folded around to Gray on the button, who called. The flop brought JJ4 and Gray called a bet of 5K. The K fell on the turn and the under-the-gun player moved all in, putting Gray all in for his last 12K. Gray thought for close to four minutes before calling with 54, which needed help against AA. The river bricked and Gray quickly exited the event shy of his fifth cash of the World Series.
Two-hundred twenty-three players still remain, including P5ers Owen “ocrowe” Crowe (chip leader with over 130K), Dan “voff” Deveau (75k), Phil “USCPhildo” Collins (70K), Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (60K) and Bryan Micon (60K).