WSOP 2008
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
Greenstein Wins Third Bracelet
by Jill on 06.16.08, 4:29 am
In Event #30, the $10K Limit Hold’em Championship, Barry Greenstein (pictured at left) recently returned to his stack after sitting out for a long time. Amazingly enough, 11K of his stack remained at the table, despite blinding away for hours. He shouldn’t be too disappointed, however, since while his stack was thinning, he was busy winning Event #26, the $1.5K Razz tournament. Congratulations to Barry on his third bracelet and $157,619!
As Greenstein was signing his book for second-place finisher Chris Klodnicki, Chris “sooooted” Vaughn sat in the one seat, taking down small uncontested pots to increase his stack to 55K, well above the average 34K. Amanda Leatherman sat at the next table over guarding Greenstein’s new bracelet, which PocketFives guesstimates would fit around her waist.
Behind Vaughn sat Brock “t_soprano” Parker, who was bullying Bill Chen’s short stack to his right. Chen raised and met a preflop call from Parker. The flop came A
9T
. Chen checked, Parker raised, and Chen called. The turn came the 2, meeting the same action as before. When the 5 came on the river, Chen raised, and Parker called, showing down pocket aces for the win. Parker’s stack was sitting pretty at 70K. Matt “mattster24″ Sterling was also sitting comfortably with over 60K in chips.
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, however, was in trouble with only 15K in chips and sitting at a stacked table with Erick Lindgren, Joe Sebok, and Alex Kravchenko. Fortunately, Mizzi hasn’t given up hope yet; as PocketFives watched, he raised on the button and met a call from one other player in the big blind. The flop came 66
4 and the big blind raised, which Mizzi called. The 8
on the turn met a check from the big blind and a raise from Mizzi. This action induced a fold and Mizzi’s stack grew to more than 21K. Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, however, was unable to improve his short stack and was eliminated from the tournament.
The $3K No-Limit Hold’em tournament ended for the night with 81 out of 716 players remaining. Play resumes tomorrow at 2PM PST where many PocketFivers contend for the bracelet and a grand prize of $434,789.
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
Shootout–Take Two
by Jessica on 06.10.08, 2:10 am
Play is finally underway for Round Two of the $1.5K NLHE Shootout event after the final, marathon heads up session of Round One came to a close. The original plan was to break for one hour after the last table was completed, but when that table ran so late, they shortened the break to around 15 minutes before resuming play. Unfortunately for Brian “Like7″ Lamanna, no one told him about the changes, so he did not arrive to the event until the first level was nearly over. Brian has some ground to make up and has 20K of his 30K starting stack left with the blinds at 400/800 and a 100 ante.
Chris “sooooted” Vaughn (pictured at left) exited the tournament shortly before Lamanna arrived and 13 other players have headed home for the night as well. Most of the tables are still relatively full, but play will not end until each of the ten tables has played down to a single winner. Here are the chip counts of several P5ers and notable online players remaining in the field:
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 55K
Matthew “Hazards21″ Gianetti - 50K
Casey “ccmuney” Coleman - 37K
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 35K
David “nutsr84444″ Redlin - 35K
Tom “SBRounder” West - 29K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 20K
Across the room, the $10K Stud Championship event crowned Eric Brooks their winner and he will be taking home $415,856 for his efforts.
The other events still taking place as the night progresses are the $1K ladies event, which is one player away from setting the final table, the $5K 2-7 Single Draw with rebuys, and the $2K Omaha Hi/Lo Split event.
Been Chips Up, Harrington Doubles
by AdamJ on 06.04.08, 5:47 pm
Minutes before players went on break in the 2k NL Event, Aaron Been got involved in big pot and was all-in on the flop in the 50-100 level.
On a flop of T64, Been (seen left) bet 350 and his opponent check-raised to 1050. Been went all-in for 2,950 more and his opponent folded after thinking for about two minutes, bringing Been’s stack up to 5600.
After losing over 3k of his initial 4k starting stack in the first hour, P5er Court Harrington picked up a key hand at the right time.
With blinds at 50-100, Harrington woke up with AA on the button. After a player limped in the cutoff, Harrington with exactly 1k, raised to 400. Both blinds folded and the limper called.
The flop came K52 and Harrington’s opponent put him all-in for his last 600, tabling K7. The board ran out harmless for Harrington, who picked up more chips after his double up and is now at 3,500.
Thanks to a brutal river card, Chris “sooooted” Vaughn has been eliminated after his flopped straight lost to trips on the turn in all-in pot when his opponent filled up on the river.
Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul’s stack is moving upward. Saul said he’s won multiple hands preflops and only one hand with more than the blinds in it, resulting in his 5,700 stack.
Despite locking in on his table at times, Saul’s attention has been diverted throughout the tournament as he has been trying to track down his girlfriend Val Palermo, who’s table broke earlier in the tournament.
At the start of the tournament she was sitting right in his field of view, as was her tablemate Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman, whom he threatened action against if he was to bust her.
Joking of course….we think.
Several P5ers are building stacks in the $1K rebuy. Jeff “yellowsub86″ Williams added 35K to his massive pile of chips when he reraised the button all-in from the big blind with AJ. The button called with 99 and Williams continued to ride his heater when the board revealed AQ8TQ. Williams is up to about 140K.
Tim “TMay420″ West (pictured right) was blessed with some generous timing when his AA held up against the pocket kings of James Rouse. West doubled to nearly 130K and is among the chip leaders.
Justin “Jurollo” Rollo and Ken “isuck123″ Goldin also recenty doubled up. Rollo got his money in preflop with QQ against A8 and picked up a 30K pot when the board read 98747. Goldin is up to 38K.
Here are some other recent chip counts of remaining P5ers in Event #5:
Amit “amak316″ Makhija: 160K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray: 140K
Carl “colson10″ Olson: 50K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy: 40K