WSOP 2008
Volleyball Gold
by Court on 08.24.08, 11:56 pm
Is there a poker tournament going on at the Bicycle Casino tonight? Or is it just a group of people gathered to watch the Olympics? As the USA men’s volleyball team played their way to a gold medal much of the attention span in a room full of ADD players was tuned towards the TV and away from the table. Now that the game is over the focus is back on poker, for some of the room at least.
Phil Laak and Allen Cunningham were just involved in a juggling prop bet. Laak had to juggle three apples for 60 seconds to win a few hundred dollars bet. Carried out right by the tournament poker table Laak completed his task, drew the attention of the room, pocketed his couple of Benjamins and is back to playing poker, at least for the next few hands.
Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (left) and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements have been freed up to divert their attention anywhere they would like after their eliminations from the tournament. Barry Greenstein and Allen Cunningham both still have around 70k and are near the top of the chip counts, trailing Maria Ho with 95k and Ali Eslami with 135k and a handful of other players in the 100k range.
Much of the field is still scrapping around the 30-40k range. Peter “#1Pen” Neff raised to 1,100 after a player limped in for 200. The limper called and on the Q
J
5 flop checked to Neff who bet 1,600. He was check raised to 4k and Peter thought for a brief moment before grabbing his entire stack and sitting it out in the middle. After the 4k was pulled in Neff’s bet was about 20k more to his opponent who folded after some consideration. After the hand Neff had around 32k.
Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn is also still around the starting stack. He recently had to fold a set on a board of T
6258 to a river bet. After ditching the set Josh still has just under the 30k starting stack.
Sitron Sitting Pretty
by Crystal on 07.02.08, 12:14 am
In the $1.5k NLHE event #52, Scott “ssitron” Sitron is currently one of the chip leaders with nearly 600k in chips. In a recent hand, Scott (pictured left) was in the big blind and when the player on the button pushed all in for 22k. Already having 8k in the pot he wanted to call but his T3 wasn’t the best hand. He did eventually make the call only to find that he was way ahead of the button’s 53. The flop came with a ten and Scott knocked the other player out.
Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld was knocked out in 38th place when he open shoved 71.5K from the button at 4K/8K blinds and was called by the big blind with A8. Ziedenfeld’s QJ needed to improve, but the K
7793 board didn’t help and he earned $10,660 for his deep finish.
Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaughbaugh has been building his stack up over the last couple of hours and now sits with 340k while David Daneshgar currently has around 190k.
In the $1.5k LHE Shootout, Matt “mattg1983″ Graham, Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke, Sasha “bikocruz” Rosewood and Blair Rodman are headed to round two while Justin “zeejustin” Bonomo was eliminated when he ran his J4 into his opponents J7 on a board of J932T. Round 1 is still in progress with two heads-up matches in play. Once Round 2 begins, play will go on until a winner at each table is decided or until 2:00 a.m. PT — whichever comes first.
Sitron Making a Run in 1.5k NL
by AdamJ on 07.01.08, 9:00 pm
Scott “ssitron” Sitron (pictured left) has nearly quadrupled his stack since P5’s last caught up with him a few hours ago.
Sitron currently sits with 250k in Day 2 of the 1.5k NL WSOP Event #52, a stack way above the 82k average with 98 players left with blinds at 1.5k-3k-400.
Sitron said he has been running good and has won a trio of all-ins when he was ahead each time with Q-Q vs 5-5, J-J vs 5-5, and TT vs A-5 suited.
Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh just dipped below his 170k starting stack after he lost 20k in a pot where he re-raised an under the gun raise and got 4-bet and flatted the raise, check-folding on a T94 flop.
George “TheButler” Dietz has moved up from his 35k stack a few hours ago, currently at 70k. Dietz got a favorable seat draw with his back only a few feet from the rail where his friends Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul and Dan “Wretcy” Martin followed the action.
After starting the day with only 9k, David Daneshgar has held on to the 110k stack he accumulated in the first few hours.
Ben “bfineman” Fineman was one of the early winners of the 1.5k Limit Shootout WSOP Event #53. A handful of other P5er’s are still in the hunt as well.
Tim “TMay420″ West is 3-handed with 13k of the 29k in play and Scott “gunning4you” Seiver is heads-up with 18k. Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson has mounted a big rally in heads-up play, running a 4k stack up to 12k. Brock “t_soprano” Parker is down to 3-handed play but is very short at 2k and Justin “zeejustin” Bonomo is 3-handed with 8k. Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke is 3-handed with 5.5k.
Saddling Up for HORSE
by Jill on 06.29.08, 10:11 pm
Event #51, the $1.5K HORSE tournament is well under way with a strong online presence. Play continued to spread across multiple sections of the Amazon room as well as the Brasilia room. PocketFives spotted Shannon Shorr, Brett “Gank” Jungblut, Matt “SamENole” Smith, Justin Bonomo, and Eric “jakz101″ Crain amongst the field.
David “seal” Eisenstein and Bryan Micon (pictured at right) were seated next to each other, but there was a mix-up about where Micon was supposed to sit. The dealer called the floor staff over to help resolve the situation, and the woman who came knew not what she was getting herself into. “Who are you, now?” she asked Micon. “Who am I?” he replied. “I’m Bryan Micon. I’m very, very, very famous.” The table laughed before Micon assumed the correct seat and play began.
Meanwhile, we spotted Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, Alex Jacob, and Stu “thedonator” Paterson, all of whom busted out earlier from the $10K Pot Limit Omaha tournament. We caught Stu yawning a number of times, so it looks like they have a long night ahead of them in this big field.
When PocketFives caught up with play in Event #49, Gerry “TheGatherer” Kane (pictured at left in his Scottish gear) continued to use his lucky kilt to accumulate chips; his stack was up to 110K and growing as he was taking down small pots. Taylor “tdomeski” Douglas was short-stacked with 20K and recently moved to Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar’s table, where he had worked his stack up to a respectable 95K. Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg, however, was looking healthy and happy with a stack of 170K.
In the $10K Pot Limit Omaha event, Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi got involved in an interesting hand. We caught up with the action on the turn with the board reading 652K. Sorel checked over to his opponent who bet 9.1K. Sorel tanked for a couple of minutes before tossing out two pink 5K chips to make the call. The river brought the K and Sorel again checked over to the other player who bet 13K.
Sorel went into the tank yet again and after a few minutes had passed another player called the clock. Sorel had 60 seconds to make a decision and as the floor counted 3…2…1… Sorel mucked his hand, conceding the pot. His opponent showed two of his hole cards, the 75 which, by themselves, would have been good for two pair - kings and fives. Players are now on a 90 minute dinner break and some unoffical chip counts are listed below.
Noah “Exclusive” Boeken - 48k
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements - 46k
Rolf Slotboom - 46k
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 40k
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 36k
Thayer Rasmussen - 33k
Tom “durrrr” Dwan - 20k
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 18k
Seat Open!
by Crystal on 06.28.08, 6:16 pm
Because play ended last night in the $2k NLHE event #48 right after the bubble burst, the “all-in fest” that usually occurs immediately following was saved for today. Less than 30 minutes after play began two tables had already been broken and David “ComptonMasta” Barter and Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin are amongst the early casualties.
Bryan “Devo” Devonshire was also eliminated when his pocket fives ran into pocket jacks and failed to improve.
60 players have been eliminated in the first 75 minutes of play today and the other short stacks will obviously be looking to make moves soon so the high number of eliminations is likely to continue through the early part of the afternoon.
In the $1.5k NLHE event that started at noon today Justin Bonomo (pictured right) has jumped out as one of the early chip leaders with 14k while Theo Tran, Jeff ”yellowsub” Williams and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul have already been eliminated.
Eric “Rizen” Lynch was guarding a short stack when PocketFives caught up to his table on a T-7-4 flop. Eric moved all in with Q-8 after the flop and managed to double against pocket jacks when he spiked a queen on the turn. Another player at his table asked, “Is there a bounty on you or something?” before Eric laughed and collected the pot. Other players faring less profitably include Dave “davyg” Gyarmti, who had accumulated up to 5.2K in chips until his pocket kings were cracked by pocket nines. He was down to 1.8K at the break.
Other PocketFives members spotted in the event include David “seal” Eisenstein, Scott “thebasher007″ Stubbs, Nick “FU_15″ Maimone, William “gptbigguy” Looper, Joseph “Dyzalot” Morneau, Micah “mordan” Hendrix, Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka, Chris “sooooted” Vaughn, Steve “willywoo” Nolan, Matt “All In At 420″ Stout, Eric “erbloore” Bloore, and Matt “SamENole” Smith. Some chip counts for other players are listed below.
Amit “amak316″ Makhija - 3.5K (pictured left)
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 4K
Stuart “zpaceman” Taylor - 5.2K
Chris “big huni” Hunichen - 4K
Andriy “tormos” Pavlyuk - 6K
Shawn “raptorfan” Morris - 4.5K