WSOP 2008
Freeman and Vinsant Moving Up
by AdamJ on 06.26.08, 3:41 am
It took Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant two hands and two minutes to go from 16k to 65k in the 1k rebuy WSOP Event #44. In the 500-1000-100 level, Mark Seif opened to 2500 and Vinsant moved all-in. To Vinsant’s dismay, a player moved all-in behind him for slightly less than Vinsant and Seif folded.
Vinsant showed K
T
and trailed his opponents J
J until the flop came king high. The very next hand, Vinsant raised to 2600 and a player moved all-in from the blinds for around 20k. Vinsant called immediately with A
K, dominating his opponents AQ. The board ran true for Vinsant who went from from a short stack to above average stack in two hands.
Vinsant failed to win his third straight hand in a row, however, loosing about 20k when he was checkraised on the turn on a A93Q board. Vinsant told P5’s he folded AJ.
Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman’s (pictured right) stack was on life support around 9k when the average 30k over an hour ago but currently is the chip leader at his table with 75k. Freeman didn’t say he had any big all-in preflop hands but mentioned that he was running good as an explanation for his rapid rise in chips.
Craig “MrCasino” Gray has also been on an upswing, as his stack has went from 18k to 46k in the last hour. Gray doubled up in a hand against Vanessa Rousso when he defended her raise from the big blind with JT. Gray check-raised Rousso when he flopped an open-end straight draw and backdoor flush draw on a nine high flop, and got re-raised all-in by Rousso, who flopped a set of nines. Gray made a straight and doubled to around 40k.
Stuart “TheDonator” Paterson (pictured left) recently doubled up when he defended a raise out of the big blind with 9-7 and flopped trips, doubling up off an opponent that had pocket aces. Paterson’s stack has gone from 47k to 110k in the past hour.
Shaun Deeb’s stack won’t be able to recover from a bluff gone bad after he went all-in over Theo Tran’s raise only to have a player raise behind him. Tran folded and Deeb proudly flipped over his 72, which was remarkably not in that bad of shape against his opponents KJ. Deeb flopped a flush draw but never improved and was sent to the rail.
Tran busted another prominent online player in Adam “Roothlus” Levy earlier when his set of three’s held up against Levy’s semi-bluffed flush draw with two overs to the board. Tran currently has 52k.
Here’s a list of other notable chip stacks with 144 remaining and the average stack at 47k.
Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks - 95k
Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken - 75k
Randy “randers” Haddox - 48k
Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier - 44k
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements - 42k
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 40k
Brock “t_soprano” Parker - 36k
Adam “akat11″ Katz - 35k
Ben “bfineman” Fineman - 24k
Jason Gray - 14k
Diamonds are Stout’s Best Friend
by Jill on 06.26.08, 2:37 am
Fortunately for the players in the $1K No-Limit Hold’em with Rebuy WSOP event, they just had a 20-minute break to race off the green 25 chips at their tables and cool off from the stiff competition. Prior to the break, however, several showdowns resulted in recent eliminations and equally dramatic chipstack increases.
As PocketFives reported earlier, Josh “pbdrunks” Van Duyn was nursing a short stack; when we last checked in at his table, his seat had been filled by someone else and Mark Seif’s stack was up to 130K. No word on what happened, but we couldn’t spot his signature mohawk anywhere in the field. Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi (pictured at left) was eliminated when his A-Q hit an ace on the turn, but was rivered with the 4, giving his opponent a set of fours.
On the flip side of the draw was Matt “All In At 420″ Stout, who raised it up with 3K. He was reraised all in by a player in late position and called. When they flipped their cards over, Stout’s QT was way behind pocket kings, but a flop full of diamonds was Matt’s best friend. Another diamond on the river flushed out the other player.
Other players faring well included Scott “USCTrojans” Freeman, who sat stacked with about 60K in chips and was bullying his way through late position to take down several uncontested pots. Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant held his own with 33K at a table stacked with Men Nguyen and huge-stacked Mark Seif.
Meanwhile, Shaun Deeb (pictured at right) was raking in a pot he had gone all in on, increasing his stack to 14K just before the break. He sat at a table with Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements, who challenged him to a side bet of $20 when they drew cards for the green chip race-off. Deeb’s queen was enough to take down the bet. Don’t spend it all in one place, Shaun!
Play continues into Level 9 in the event and will complete at the end of Level 10. Only 180 players remain out of the original field of 879; it’s yet to be seen if we will break the bubble tonight, as has been the case in the majority of recent events. Good luck to all those who remain!
Treacherous Tables in Rebuy
by AdamJ on 06.26.08, 1:16 am
Many online players seemed a bit disgusted with their tables after players returned from an hour and a half dinner break in the 1k rebuy WSOP Event #44.
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach lamented having to play at his table, playing with Jason “JCarver” Somerville and Jeff “yellowsub” Williams to his left.
Somerville was hating life even more as he said Williams, who was sitting two players his left, was “abusing” him. The two had a playful deamenor with each other as they made cracks on each other as P5’s was watching the action.
Somerville even tried to bribe P5’s to write something bad about Williams, even offering up a green 25 chip as compensation. P5’s scoffed at the offer, electing to wait for higher compensation!
Fohrenbach’s frustration didn’t get much sympathy from Adam “Roothlus” Levy, who walked over and talked about his table which included Shaun Deeb (21k), Theo Tran (75k), Scott “BigRiskky” Clements (45k), and Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich (13k).
This table was one of the more social tables, talking about many random poker stories capped off by who has broken more laptops.
After much discussion, Deeb mentioned that nobody has broken more than Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista, who has a tally Deeb confidently described as “double digits” piled up in his garage.
Joshua “pbdrunks” VanDuyn (pictured left) was battling a short stack of 10k at one of the more interesting tables left, playing alongside Mark Seif (98k), Minh “The Master” Nguyen, David Daneshgar (9k), and Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant (25k).
Although VanDuyn’s situation seemed dire with about a third of the 30k average stack, it was much worse until he tripled up his 3k stack off of Vinsant when his kings held up against Vinsant’s AJ. Perhaps VanDuyn will need to borrow another colorful hat like the pink one he borrowed from JJ Lieu earlier in the day to improve his fortune.
Here’s a list of notable chip stacks during the 400-800-100 level with 198 of 879 left.
Jason Mercier - 73k
Eric “E-fro” Froehlich - 64k
Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken - 49k
Ben “bfineman” Fineman - 30k
Brett “bhanks11″ Hanks - 26k
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 21k
Stu “TheDonator” Paterson - 20k
Adam “akat11″ Katz - 20k
Matt “All in At 420 Stout” - 18k
Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman - 9k
He’s a Shaniac!
by Jill on 06.21.08, 5:07 am
The pace in the Amazon room slowed to a crawl as 64 players remained in Event #38, the $2K Pot-Limit Hold’em tournament. Hand-for-hand play endured for 45 minutes of the last level as players eyed the guaranteed payout of $3,744. When the bubble still hadn’t burst at the end of Level 10, groans were heard everywhere. Tournament directors instructed the players that they would play through the bubble tonight before taking a quick ten-minute break to ease the burden of the news.
Unfortunately, several PocketFivers suffered at the whims of the bubble; Noah “Exclusive” Boeken was eliminated when his 55 were dominated by his opponent’s pocket nines. Other recent eliminations include Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Shaun Deeb, Shannon Shorr, Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista, and Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan, who was spotted talking with friends on the rail.
Building a stack, however, was Shane “shaniac” Schleger (pictured at right) who had 48K in chips. When P5s caught up with Shane’s table, he was raising to 3.4K preflop in early position and bullied his whole table into a fold. He remained aggressive as the last level of the day concluded, making sure that he stayed above the average stack of 36K.
After the ten-minute break, Shane managed to catch a couple of monster hands perfect for chipping up: in the first hand, Shane reraised preflop against one other opponent who folded queens; he showed pocket aces. The next hand, the same opponent raised and Shane re-raised once again. This time there was no fold and Shane called his opponent’s potted all-in. Shane held pocket queens to his opponent’s AK and he managed to catch a club flush on the river. The Shaniac was living large with 85K at the conclusion of play tonight after the bubble finally burst and the players were sent home. Play resumes at 2PM PST tomorrow afternoon.
Stu “thedonator” Patterson battled on in Event #37, the $10K Omaha 8 tournament. The field narrowed to 30 remaining players with average stacks of 142K as we caught up with Stu’s table showing the 37T4 on the board. Stu bet 8K after the turn and was called. The Q dropped on the river and Stu bet again, receiving a call. He showed down pocket aces for the win and was up to 112K in chips. Shortly after, Stu re-raised a limper and min-raiser to 25K preflop. The limper dropped out but the min-raiser called and the board came 4AK. Stu bet 8K, met a reraise and called. The 2 hit the river; when his opponent bet out, Stu folded and his stack dropped to 80K. At the next table over, Mike Matusow was making train noises for no apparent reason.
The field has since narrowed to 27 players who are all guaranteed $22,090 for making it this far. Players drew for new seats and have since returned from a short break; play will certainly continue late into the evening as all contenders compete for the $535,687 first-place finish and bracelet.
Across the Brasilia room at the Event #36 $10K, the final table for Event #36 has been set and play ended for the evening. Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh is the acting chip leader with 1.59M after busting Bryan Micon (pictured at left), who walks away with $28,391 for his deep run. Owen “ocrowe” Crowe also earned his seat at the final table when he eliminated Tom “titantom32″ Braband. Braband’s pocket nines were dominated by Crowe’s AQ on a Q-Q-4 flop; he busted in 12th Place for $36,741. Aaron “gotcha55″ Kanter will sit at the final table as the 200K short stack. Play also resumes tomorrow at 2PM PST.
Strong Online Presence Deep in $3K NLHE
by AdamJ on 06.16.08, 1:45 am
Feeling like a fish out of water, Kathy Liebert was doing her best to pry information out of whoever was around, poker reporters included, as to who the notable online players were at her table in the $3K No-Limit Hold’em WSOP Event #29.
Given the amount of attention spent observing the table, her instincts about there being notable online players at her table was correct. Matt “All in At 420″ Stout, Joshua “pbdrunks” VanDuyn (pictured at left), Jason “JCarver” Somerville, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier were all battling it out at her table.
“So are any of these guys ranked in the top 20?” she asked, trying to gauge her competition. Liebert continued to talk it up with her newly-found online friends. Their conversation usually consisted of talk about players from both the live and online realms.
When the conversation turned to the final two players in the $10K No-Limit Hold’em heads-up championship, Liebert stated that she liked Kenny Tran’s chances. Stout chimed in that it’s a lot closer of a contest than she thinks and explained to her that Alec “traheho” Torelli is one of the more respected online heads-up players online. Somerville added that he figured Tran as a slight favorite.
VanDuyn got eliminated in Level 7 when his opponent opened with QJ and he raised all-in with AT, losing when his opponent turned three jacks. Liebert’s table wasn’t the only stacked table deep in the 3K NL as a handful of online pros were scattered throughout the remaining 126 players of the 716 player field.
PocketFives caught up with Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers as he was all in on the button. Shaun Deeb (pictured at right) called him down, flipping over his QA to Sowers’ bluffed K3. The board came 69AA2, giving Sowers the flush and crippling Deeb’s already-short stack. Deeb ended the hand with 4K in chips, while Sowers doubled his stack back up to 25K after being down for a good part of the level.
Craig “MrCasino” Gray drew a table with some familiar foes; Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert and Noah “fouruhaters” Schwartz also sat at his table. Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke’s chip stack went from 50k to 110k when he busted three players at his table in five hands right after the dinner break. He is one of the top stacks in the tournament with the average chip stack at 29k.
Here were other notable stacks in the event:
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 93k
Stuart “The Donator” Patterson - 51k
Kathy Liebert - 37k
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers - 33k
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 32k
Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert - 31k
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 20k
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 17k
Shaun Deeb - 15k
Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier - 6k
Many of the online players who busted out of the $3K No-Limit Hold’em tournament earlier jumped into the $10K Limit Hold’em World Championship Event #30, which started at 5pm. When we caught up with the play there, Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi (pictured at left) claimed to have Eric “EFro” Froehlich’s number. Mizzi pulled down a sizeable pot when he hit trip kings on the turn; his stack increasing to 30K. However, Minh Ly thought he would get in on the action as well soon after; when Mizzi bet at the pot preflop, both Minh and Marco Traniello called. The flop came 3TJ and Sorel min-raised to get two callers. The turn was the Q, Sorel checked, Minh bet, Traniello called, and Sorel laid down in a good spot — Minh had turned a king-high straight to win more chips at the table. “You’ve got his number?,” Minh asked Mizzi. “Well, I’ve got your number now!”
Here are some chip counts of key players left with the average stack at 23k:
Justin Bonomo - 47k
Brock “t_soprano” Parker - 27k
Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko - 20k
Chris “sooooted” Vaughn - 23k
Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken - 10k
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 5k
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar - 3k