WSOP 2008
Hanks Having a Drink on Scotty
by AdamJ on 06.17.08, 3:36 am
Ordering his standard round of Michelob’s, Scotty Nguyen found a few takers to partake in his palate cleansing.
P5er Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks (pictured right) took part in the festivities about 30 minutes after the players made the money in the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31.
On the very next hand, unaffected by Nguyen’s generosity, Hanks raised Nguyen’s big blind and took the pot down as Nguyen was more worried about tipping the waitress for the drinks.
After getting a little ribbing from Nguyen, Hanks showed Nguyen his Q
Q
as the two had been very cordial with each other at the table.
Hanks built his stack up to 70k before doubling up a short stack to his left and currently sits at 50k in the 600-1200-100 level.
Phil “USCphildo” Collins (pictured below) probably felt in the mood for a few rounds after he lost a 140k pot in his first hand at the table to tournament chip leader Alan Shahar.
Shahar raised to 4k preflop and Collins called. On a AJ
9 flop, Collins check called 7k. Collins check called Shahar’s 14k bet on the 3 turn. The 5 dropped on the river and Collins checked to Shahar’s 44k bet.
After tanking for a few minutes, trying to decipher what this man sitting behind a mountain of unorganized chips held, Collins called and mucked when Shahar showed A9 for a flopped two-pair that ran into a backdoor flush.
Collins later said he had AQ
and said if he’d won that pot he thought he had a strong chance to make the final table with his stack.
He also mentioned that since he under-repped his hand so much by checking all three streets, he thought that he had a reasonable chance to induce a bet from a worse hand cause his hand looked so weak.
Collins rebounded in the following rounds, increasing his stack from 12k to 24k.
Here are some notable stacks of the 79 of 1,012 left with the average chip stack at 64k.
Dario Minieri - 90k
Jason Mercier - 80k
Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko - 65k
Aditya “intervention” Agarwal - 55k
Shannon Shorr - 46k
Mark Vos - 35k
Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant - 25k
Dave Ulliott - 12k
Lieu Doubles, Saul Busts
by Brett on 06.11.08, 9:55 pm
With a below average stack in the middle stages of the 5k NL WSOP Event #21, Liz Lieu (pictured right) caught the break she needed at just the right time.
On a flop of 647, Gavin Smith led for 700 and Andy Black raised to 2k. Lieu 4-bet all-in for 8200. Smith folded (which he later said was aces) and Black moved all-in, having Lieu outchipped by a few thousand. Black tabled 44 and Lieu showed her double draw with the Q8. The turn was a Q but the river 9 rescued Lieu’s stake in the tournament, increasing her stack to 18k.
There was an incredible amount of live pro’s at Scotty Nguyen’s table, who was playing alongside Kenny Tran, Noah “Exclusive” Boeken, Layne Flack, Huck Seed, and Eric Cajelais.
P5er Andy “BKiCe” Seth drew one of the tougher tables in the field with cash game savants Daniel Alaei, Nick Schulman, and Brian “tsarrast” Rast. Gavin Griffin and Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin were also at the table, making for an interesting mix of players. Seth had one of the bigger stacks at the table with 31k at the 150-300-25 level.
Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul sitting alongside his friend Jason “JCarver” Summerville, lost over half his stack when his flopped set lost to a turned straight, losing a big bet on the turn and the river where Saul check-called both streets.
A few hands later with around 3k, Saul moved in under-the-gun at the 150-300-25 level with KT but ran into an opponents AK and Saul failed to improve.
Undeterred by busting, Saul was back at again in just enough time to join a handful of online players mixing it up in the 3k HORSE, WSOP Event #22 which started at 5pm.
Vying for his fifth WSOP cash this summer, Craig “MrCasino” Gray (pictured left) elected to skip the 5k NL event earlier so he could play the 3k HORSE. “There’s so many NL tournaments and this is just more of an enjoyable experience to me,” Gray said. “It’s like poker’s fun again.”
Fresh of their success in the 10k Mixed Event, Tony “tongni” Rivera and James “mig.com” Mackey are looking for another final table in a mixed games event after they were the last two standing in the 10k Mixed tournament. Ironically enough, both were dropouts from the University of Missouri but didn’t know each other til they met at the final table.
Here’s a list of some of the other notable online players scattered throughout the 408 player 3k HORSE field:
Johnny Bax
Brock “t_soprano”
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers
Chris “sooooted” Vaughn