WSOP 2008
Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
by Crystal on 07.10.08, 10:32 pm
733 players are now on their 90 minute dinner break and the tension in the air has been continuously rising as we get closer and closer to the money bubble of 666 players. The staff here at the Rio is somewhat going to be restricting media access to the tables as hand for hand play approaches so we’ll do our best after the break to catch as much as we can.
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe (pictured right) started the day with a healthy 220k in chips but during the level before the dinner break he was caught up in a couple crazy hands. After building his stack up to nearly 350k, Crowe and two other players saw a flop of Q
43
. The big blind bet out 17.9k and the player in the middle and Crowe made the call. The K
fell on the turn and both the other players checked to Crowe who pushed a large stack of orange 5k chips into the middle, 80k total. The big blind folded and after a lot of thought the other player made the call. The 7 fell on the river and both players checked. Crowe’s opponent flipped over the K9 for the 2nd nut flush and Crowe was livid. He couldn’t believe that the other player had made his flush and checked it. The other player requested to see Crowe’s cards and so the dealer flipped over his KQ
. The ESPN cameras caught all the action but Crowe was visibly not enjoying being filmed and was steaming after the hand.
It didn’t take too long to get a few of his chips back. We caught up with the action with the board reading 8639J and Crowe bet 23k which another player called. Crowe tabled the T7 for a turned straight that only improved on the river and scooped up to pot. A little later Crowe got into a hand with Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert but they weren’t too eager to create much action. They both checked the KT5 flop, the K on the turn, and the 3 on the river. Crowe showed the J5 for kings and fives which was the best hand as Leo mucked and Crowe climbed back up to around 320k.
We caught up with David “Bakes” Baker (pictured left) as he and another opponent were heads up in a raised pot on a flop of QJ8. Baker’s opponent bet 15K and David thought briefly before raising enough to put him all-in. The other player tanked for some time and tried to pry information from David asking him questions and announcing, “I know you’re only on a draw.” He eventually made the call for his remaining 38.7K with AQ. David turned over the KK and the turn came the 3, leaving the other player with one less out since David picked up the flush draw. The Q fell on the river and the other player doubled through Baker leaving him with right around 150K going into dinner break.
Today, Table 12 in the Blue section of the Amazon room may qualify as one of the sickest lineups we’ve seen so far in the entire 2008 World Series. Tim “tmay420″ West, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson, Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby and Allen Cunningham are lined up in a row. When we last caught up to their table, Darren gave us -the look-; he was feeling frustrated as his stack dropped from 190K earlier today to a much less comfortable 85K. When we asked what happened, Tim chuckled and Garrett groaned.
Darren reported that he picked up aces two levels ago. On a flop of Q-7-8 with an already-sizeable pot in the middle, Darren put his one remaining opponent all-in. Darren’s pocket aces dominated… that is, until a 3 on the turn and a jack spiked on the river gave his opponent’s Q-J two pair. Darren quartered his stack, falling below 50K in chips. However, Garrett chimed in at this point in the story, noting that he’d later doubled Darren up when his J-T connected to a jack-high flop with all clubs on the board. Darren’s pocket aces held and he edged his stack upwards. He left for dinner break with a stack of 85K to Garrett’s 150K. Tim reported that he was trying to stay out of it; he said, “It sucks when I have no other choice but to bust my close friends!” He guarded a 97K stack while Cort had 200K.
Josh “Squintngo” Goldstein, however, didn’t have such an exciting table draw. He lamented to PocketFives that he’s been bored the last few levels. Regardless, he was taking the opportunity to rake in a few small preflop pots; he increased his stack to 127K before the break.
On a side note, Mike Matusow was just spotted running “laps” outside near the poker kitchen during the break. By laps, we actually mean 20 ft smallish circles… perhaps trying to work off nervous energy? Maybe he just didn’t get all his running in today and is trying to make up for it. Regardless, it gave us here at P5s a chuckle.
In case you’re hungry, here’s a heaping pile of chip counts for you to munch on during the break! (The average stack based on the tournament clock is currently almost 187k)
Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen - 580K (pictured right)
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen - 430K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 400K
Paul “comeonphish” Lieu - 390K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 340K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 310K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 290K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 285K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 280K
Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert - 276K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 270K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 265K
Allen “abari” Bari - 255K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 205K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 200K
Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward- 190k
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 185K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 182K
Hunter “THE_HUNT_D” Frey - 180K
Thayer Rasmussen - 170K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 165K
Jason Gray - 155K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 150K
David “Bakes” Baker - 150K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 140K
Brent “Astrolux85″ Roberts - 130K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 127K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 120K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 120K
Kush Patel - 115K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 110K
Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert - 109K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 100K
Jan “Erdnase” Heitmann - 97K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 95K
Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson - 85K
Jeff Papola - 75K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 70K
“Bodog” Ari Engel - 70K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 68K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 50K
Recent eliminations include Mike “SirWatts” Watson, Matt “mattg1983″ Graham, Jason “strassa2″ Strasser, Cody “shankingyou” Shedd, Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa, and Brandon Shaefer.
Justin Time for a Double Up
by Jessica on 07.09.08, 3:10 am
Justin “looshle” Pechie (pictured at left) managed to double up shortly before the last break of the evening. With the blinds at 500/1,000 ante 100 a player raised to 2.5K preflop and Pechie called on the button with pocket tens. The flop came 322 and the initial raiser checked to Justin who bet 6K, which the initial raiser called. After the J hit on the turn, Pechie’s opponent bet 7K and Justin raised to 16K total leaving 24K behind. The other player then pushed all-in and Pechie thought for some time before making the call. It turned out to be a great call as the other player held AT for just ace high. The river was the K and Justin doubled up to 100K.
Eric “jakz101″ Crain had been one of the bigger stacks throughout the day, but got as low as 100K during Level 9 of play. He told us he was able to steal enough chips to get back up to 150K and then he got involved in a big hand that put all of his chips at risk.
A player raised to 3K under the gun and Eric made the call on the button. Kido Pham reraised to 15K and both players made the call. The flop came 10-7-6 with two hearts and Pham checked. The initial raiser bet 28K and Crain raised to 82.3K total. Kido folded and the other player shoved all-in for 30K more. Crain made the call and showed A5 while the other player had pocket jacks. The K came on the turn and the board paired on the river. Pham appeared rather distraut after the hand and claimed he folded pocket kings, meaning he would have filled up on the river and scoop the massive pot. Instead Crain took the hand down and now has 350K.
The Table of Doom we reported on in the earlier part of the day, but some of its players have been reunited in the Blue section. Dani “Ansky451″ Stern and Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki (pictured at right) are playing at the same table once again and will likely not move before the end of the day. Klodnicki was sitting with over 200K, but took a bit of a hit when, with the blinds at 600/1,200 ante 200 the player in the cut off open raised to 14K leaving just over 15K behind. Klodnicki was on the button and reraised enough to put the other player all-in. She quickly made the call with pocket kings, which had Chris’ A-K in bad shape. A king on the flop left Klodnicki with very few outs and the turn and river failed to help him. After the hand he was down to 187K.
Josh “Squintngo” Goldstein is now seated next to Jeff “yellowsub” Williams and they were chumming it up when we approached the table. After Jeff took down a huge pot when he hit runner-runner for a king-high flush, he said he’s rather be lucky than good any day of the week. Trying to keep up with his neighbor, Josh attempted to take down a pot preflop when he raised to 4,200 in early position. It folded to the button who moved in for 20K more. After thinking awhile, Josh folded and the button showed AK. He said he made a good laydown and it wasn’t the right spot to gamble for his chips.
In other news, Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward managed to donate a large part of his stack to his tablemate this level. When prodded for more information about what happened, Joe kindly requested that PocketFives report the following: “I got stupid.” …we guess that’s just one of his latest lines.
Here are some of the most recent chip counts with around an hour left to play in Day 2A:
Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 355K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 185K
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 165K
Derek “arods33″ Buanomo - 140K
Jason Gray - 140K
Josh “Squintngo” Goldstein - 118K
Andy “BadgerPro” Schultz - 113K
Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward - 100K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 165K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 130K
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 165K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 100K
Bobby “gettin deep” Hodson - 74K
Rami “arbianight” Boukai - 38K
Noah “Exclusive” Boeken - 45K
Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert - 45K
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 39K
Cox Loses Prop Bet, Then His Stack
by Crystal on 07.08.08, 5:54 pm
Greg “okstate345″ Cox recently played in a $50 Heads Up sit-n-go tournament online and lost, and since a prop bet was part of the deal between he and the other player, Greg showed up today in a purple bathrobe, pink swim goggles and a blue wide-brimmed sun hat. In one hand where Greg had only 7k left in chips there was a raise and re-raise in front of him and he held pocket queens on the button. Greg decided to fold and was relieved to see the re-raiser show pocket aces. “He’s been a nit so far” Greg said in reference to the player with aces. Another gentleman at the table thought that “nit” was an insult and was shocked Greg said it but after a humorous conversation at the table they decided that “nit” actually wasn’t meant to be an insult in this case and Greg was off the hook.
His stack dwindled down to around 5k and when the player under the gun limped, Greg pushed all in. Everyone else folded but the under the gun player made the call with his 88 to find he was way behind Greg’s TT. The flop came Q76 and Greg’s opponent was drawing slim. The 4 on the turn gave him a few more options and the 5 fell on the river giving the other player an eight-high straight and sending Greg to the rail with a disgusted look on his face.
We caught up to Josh “Squintngo” Goldstein in the Blue section who had just called a bet of 2,500 on flop of J24. He and one other player both checked the J turn to see the 5 river. His opponent checked to him, and Josh bet out 7,025. After tanking awhile, his opponent made the call and Josh flipped over AJ to take down the pot and increase his stack to 74K.
As tables are broken in the Red section, more and more players are being moved into the orange and blue sections of the Amazon Room, resulting in some stacked tables. We stumbled upon table Orange 12, which boasts a line-up of Dani “Ansky451″ Stern, Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen, and Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki. The three players have been very active at their tables and we caught both Rosen and Ansky busting out players and increasing their chip counts in the process.
First, Rosen raised to 1,250 in early position with the blinds at 250/500 ante 50 and a player in middle position made the call. After the flop came A92 Jamie bet 2,250 and the other player quickly called. Rosen checked when the Q came on the turn and the other player bet 5K. Rosen quickly check-raised to 15K total and the other player moved all-in for less than 5K on top of the 15K. Jamie called and turned over AK and the other player revealed 9T. The J on the river was no help to his opponent and Rosen scooped a pot that pushed him up to a 140K chip stack.
A few hands later a shortstacked player raised on the button and Dani Stern reraised out of the big blind. The other player appeared to just call his raise, leaving only 5K behind. He then announced “all-in in the dark” and Stern reminded him that he was not the first to act in the hand. The flop came J73 and Dani appeared to take a quick peek at his hand to check for a club before throwing out a 5K chip. The other player called with AK while Dani held QQ. The turn and river came 6T and the other player was eliminated. Stern now sits with 75K.
Oh, and if the table wasn’t crowded enough as it was, the seat of the player Rosen busted has just been filled by Peter “number1pen” Neff.
One player whose table in the Red section has yet to break is Bobby “gettindeep” Hodson. He informed Pocketfives that he had been getting maximum value out of all of his hands and had worked his starting Day 2 stack of 28K all the way up to 60K. However, he ran into a hand where he got it all in preflop with A-K into his opponent’s pocket aces. The board bricked out and he was knocked down to just below where he started and has 26K.
Now for the good stuff! Chip counts galore!
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 145K
Paul “ComeonPhish” Lieu - 130K
Derek “arodss3″ Buonano - 120K
Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward - 107K
Jason Gray - 90K
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 82K
Tim “TMay420″ West - 73K
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner - 72K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 69K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 66K
Jordan Morgan - 58K
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 56K
Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 55K
Paul “beanie” Nobles - 55K
Kevin “kice32″ Iacofano - 53K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 51K
Brendan “moe86″ Mahoney - 48K
Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert - 40K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 38K
Steve “McNallyville” McNally - 35K
Noah “Exclusive” Boeken - 35K
Terry “Asiandude77″ Eichens - 31K
Faraz “The Toliet-0″ Jaka - 29K
Carter “notashark” Gill - 28K
Aaron Been - 27K
Shaun Deeb - 25K
Rami “arbianight” Boukai - 25K
Justin “looshle” Pechie - 24K
TJ “Doubles00ted” Slifka - 15K
Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke - 10K
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 7K
Barry Greenstein - 5K
Players eliminated since our last post include Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski, Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee, and Matt “SamENole” Smith.
2008 WSOP Main Event, Day 1A Concludes
by Jill on 07.04.08, 4:48 am
Play concluded for Day 1A of the Main Event just after 1AM PST. Nearly half of the day’s entrants were eliminated in the 10K championship; 657 of 1,297 remain for Day 2 play. Day 1b will commence tomorrow at 12pm PST at the Rio, but before we get ahead of ourselves, here is a wrap-up of Level 5, which brought quite a bit of excitement for PocketFives players.
After patiently waiting the entire level, Jeff “yellowsub” Williams (pictured at right) finally got his last 5K all in from the big blind after the player on the button raised to 1.2K. He was in great shape with A-K versus his opponent’s A-5. The flop came Q-7-2. When a queen came on the turn, Jeff looked nervous, fearing a chop, but an ace on the river sealed the deal and he doubled up to 10.5K in chips.
Another big double-up came for Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach, who had been sitting on a short stack for quite awhile. He got involved in a hand with one other player and Richard’s AQ bested his opponent’s AT on a A9792 board. He doubled up to 28K.
PocketFives also caught up with Joe “latestlines2″ Ward who was in the small blind and engaged in a hand with one other opponent. The board ran out 4-A-K-9-T and Joe’s A-6 held up to increase his stack to 56K. Shortly afterward, Joe also got involved in a hand when the board ran out J6J96. He bet out on the river and was called; both players showed A-Q for the chop, but they each picked up the blinds, antes, and a couple of limpers’ chips, so Joe increased his stack to 68K.
Josh “Squintngo” Goldstein (pictured at left), on the other hand, was feeling a little suppressed as he explained that his table was extremely nitty, yet the table next to theirs kept the camera crews running over every other hand with their all in action. Nitty or not, Josh’s stack stayed strong at 43K and he will continue on to Day 2 after attending a wedding in Chicago during his break.
Recent eliminations include Adam “akat11″ Katz, whose pocket queens couldn’t catch his opponents pocket kings, and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul, whose all-in preflop K-J couldn’t best his opponent’s K-Q. Also suspiciously missing from their seats? JC “PrtyPSux” Alvarado and Eric “p3achy_keen” Liu, about whom we haven’t heard any news.
Congrats to all players who played valiantly through Day 1a! Though official chip counts will be released later this evening, here are estimates at the end of Level 5:
Michael “dblupM0j” Johnson - 114K
Mark “pokerbok” Vos - 106K
Jeremiah Smith - 99K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 70K
Jason Gray - 69.4K
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 57.4K
Joe “latestlines2″ Ward - 68K
Jamie “TheChronic420″ Rosen - 55K
Blair “blur5f6″ Hinkle - 54K
Steve “McNallyville” McNally - 50K
Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 50K
Peter “number1pen” Neff- 49K
Josh “Squintngo” Goldstein - 43K
Brendan “moe86″ Mahoney - 37.6
Kevin “Kice32″ Iacofano - 37.5K
Doug “Resilient” Smith - 35.8K
Justin “looshle” Pechie - 32K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 26K
Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke - 21K
Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan - 21K
Barry Greenstein - 21K