WSOP 2008
Sparse Online Turnout in Triple Draw
by AdamJ on 06.22.08, 4:27 pm
For those vying for that ever elusive WSOP bracelet, the 2.5k 2-7 triple draw WSOP Event #40 offers a rare opportunity to capture WSOP hardware in a field with just over 200 players, a far cry from the 2,700 players that entered yesterday’s 1.5k NL tournament.
Only a smattering of online players arose for the noon tournament, including Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Isaac “luvthewnba” Haxton and Jonathan “Fiery Justice” Little (pictured left).
It’s likely that those that didn’t make Day 2 of the 1.5k NL that starts today at 2pm will elect to play the 1.5k Mixed Hold-em which starts at 5pm.
As expected, this field featured many live pro’s like Daniel Negreanu, Chad Brown, Greg Raymer, Jeff Madsen, Jeff Lisandro, Alex Jacob, Nam Le, John D’Agostino, David Singer, Greg “FBT” Mueller, and Gavin Smith to name a few.
Stacked 5k Mixed field, Sowers Bad Beats Dicken
by AdamJ on 06.03.08, 1:27 am
For those trying to game select WSOP tournaments to play, looking for fields ripe with weak players to enhance their chances, the 5k mixed hold-em event would fail miserably.
The 332-player field read like a who’s who list of poker professionals from both live and online communities.
Multiple tables had four to six recognizable names in poker and some tables were stocked with a bevy of big names like the table that featured Barry Greenstein, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Phil Hellmuth, Hoyt Corkins, Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman, and Amit “Amak316″ Makhija.
Ulliott had the distinct pleasure of sitting to Hellmuth’s right, prompting him to attach a piece of paper over his left ear that read “bullshit deflector.”
Greg “FBT” Mueller , last year’s 5k mixed hold-em 2nd place finisher, drew one of the tougher tables in the field with Jon “PearlJammer” Turner (pictured at right), David “Raptor” Benefield, Corey “ugotpzd” Carroll, Gavin Griffin, and Andrew “Good2cu” Robl.
It didn’t take long for Mike “SowersUNCC” and Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken to bump heads, a clash that left Dicken exiting the table talking to his former tablemates about the upcoming rebuy event.
With blinds at 200-400 in the limit round, Sowers raised to 800 from middle position and Dicken reraised to 1200 out of the blind. Sowers put Dicken all-in for his last 300 and Dicken was shocked to see that his Q
8
was dominated by Sowers A8
.
‘When you go all-in with Q8 its more likely your not dominated,’ lamented Dicken, as he stood up awaiting his fate.
The board brought no hope for Dicken and he was eliminated.
A hand minutes earlier between Sowers and Dicken played a bigger part in his departure however.
With blinds still at 200-400 in the limit round, Sowers and Dicken got involved in a capped pot preflop where Sowers got all-in on the flop.
On a KKT flop, Sowers found himself in a cooler with A
K, trailing Dicken’s TT. After a baby card dropped on the turn, Sowers hit a miracle K on the river.
Another table included a diverse collection of poker players from around the world in both live and online realms with Roland De Wolfe, Noah “Exclusive” Boeken, Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton, former world champion Greg Raymer, and last year’s 5k mixed hold-em champion and youngest bracelet holder, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis.
It didn’t take long for the affable De Wolfe to get ribbing from the table after his AQ beat his opponents AA in an all-in preflop hand in the NL round after De Wolfe’s second queen dropped on the river, sending his opponent recounting the hand to a friend still in the tournament.
‘The good thing about that is that if you go on to win the tournament you won’t be able to brag about it because i’ll be able to remind you of that,’ Raymer said to De Wolfe.
Elezra, Sowers chip leaders; Mizzi eliminated
by Crystal on 05.31.08, 4:02 am
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi was knocked out when his AK got rivered by another players JT. The player holding JT pushed all in following Mizzi’s raise. Mizzi called the all in and when he saw the other players cards he asked “Are you rich?”. The other player responded with, “Well I needed to double up.” Unfortunately for Mizzi, the other player did all but double up when the board came 3227J, taking all of Mizzi’s chips in the process.
Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton minraised preflop and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul defended his blind. On a flop of KQ2 Saul checked and Haxton bet around half the pot and Saul called. The 7 turned and Saul checked and Haxton bet 6500 and Saul called. The river was the 4 and Saul checked and Haxton went all-in for 17k and Saul called. Haxton tabled the KT and Saul mucked.
In a battle of the blinds at 1-2k level, Phil Laak completed from the sb after it was folded to him and Shaun Keller raised to 6k and Laak called. They both checked a J27. Laak bet 8k on the turn when the 10d dropped and Keller called. Laak fired 23,300 on the river and Keller studied for a few minutes. After more thought, Keller, who was sitting to Laak’s right, went into a prolonged stare at Laak’s face and then grabbed 23k in chips. Keller studied further and said “what are the chances you’ll show me if if fold,” until finally calling to see Laak’s J7 for a flopped two pair. Keller mucked.
Here are the approximate chip counts of some of the leaders at the end of day 1. Eli Elezra ended as the chip leader with about 300k in chips with Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers (pictured) behind him with about 250k, Nenad Medic 210k, Justin Newton 230k, and Tuan Le 180k.
About 70 players remain at the end of the day and they will redraw for seats tomorrow.
With a bigger buy-in event as the opening event this year, Day 1 was rather calm, but the players are all ready for the large field that Day 2’s $1.5k event will bring tomorrow.
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.