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.
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 K
Q 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.
PearlJammer Loses Vitalogy, Bubble Bursts in Event #4
by Jill on 06.04.08, 12:12 am
With 39 players remaining in the $5k MHE event, Jon “PearlJammer” Turner pushed all in on the button with AQ. His chick slick couldn’t catch up against AA and Turner busted in 38th, just before the bubble.
The next table over, JC “PrtyPSux” Alvarado held steady at 45K, deadlocked in battle with Phil Laak. We caught up with the table as Phil Laak raised, meeting a reraise from JC in late position. Laak called and the dealer showed K75. After the flop, Laak checked, JC bet, and Laak called; the dealer turned the 4. Again, Laak checked, meeting a bet from JC. After Laak called once again, the river brought the 3. JC showed down KJ to Laak’s KQ and lost the pot.
At this point, the play went hand-for-hand as several short-stacked players sweated the clock. After the bubble finally burst, other players left standing include Isaac Haxton, Andrew “good2cu” Robl, Patrik Antonius, Howard Lederer, and Andy Bloch. Players can almost taste the $374,505 grand prize and bracelet.
Meanwhile, at the $1.5K Omaha event, PocketFives players on break from the $1K re-buy event railed their fellow forum members. Jason “JP OSU” Potter, Shaun Deeb, Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach, Matt Stout were seen railing Carter “Can’t Close” King and Brandon “The Asian Undertaker” Schaefer. All nicknames courtesy of Shaun “F’in” Deeb. We learned from the railbirds that Carter recently doubled with AA against Philip Yeh’s pocket 7s.
Day 1 of the $5k MHE Event Ends, Turner Chipleader
by Crystal on 06.03.08, 5:40 am
The first day of the $5k Mixed Hold Em event is officially over, but not before some entertaining discussion went on at table #10.
Populated with popular players David Benyamine, Andy Black, Phil Laak, and Howard Lederer, this table was incredibly talkative leading up to the end of play.
During a conversation regarding how tight different players play Phil Laak stated “If you are dormant for a long time you build up credibility.” Obviously Phil didn’t feel like sitting dormant as he raised the very next hand and everyone folded. Andy Black asked “If I had pushed all in would you have folded?” and Phil laughed.
Not long after this transpired Black made it 1600 to go during a NL round and Phil Laak pushed all in for 10,325 more. Black sat for a long time debating whether to call or not as David Benyamine jokingly began to give him a hard time about whether he was going to call or not. One player at the table said “I’m gonna bet 500 chips he’s gonna fold” and the table laughed. Black did eventually fold and Phil pointed to one card and said “For $22 I’ll show you this one” but wasn’t taken up on his offer. Black did recieve a big teddy bear hug from Phil after the hand, but that probably wasn’t quite as pleasing as a large pile of chips.
An unknown player who is in the 9 seat on that table had taken part in the conversation about playing tight and when he raised on his button and everyone folded he asked the table “You want me to show it?” They all said yes and he proudly flipped over his 7-2 offsuit drawing laughter and cheers from his tablemates.
Black then announced to the table, “A bluff at the beginning and a bluff at the end. That’s perfect poker! Phil Ivey you’re useless!”
It’s nice to see such good-natured banter going on, but the tone will inevitably become more serious during day 2 as they approach the money bubble.
With 91 players remaining P5er Jon “PearlJammer” Turner (pictured left) is one of the chip leaders at the end of day one and Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke is also doing well. Notables Jeff Madsen, Phil Hellmuth, and Devilfish Ulliott have been eliminated.