WSOP 2008
“That is So Sick!”
by Brett on 07.05.08, 9:03 pm
Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich felt the excruciating pain of a one-outer in the past hour. At the 150/300 level, a player in early position limped and Rich (pictured left) raised to 1300 in middle position. It folded to the big blind, who reraised to 3,000 and Rich made the call after the limper folded. The flop brought A
J
5 and both players checked. The turn was the 7 and the big blind checked to Rich, who bet 3,300. He was then check-raised all in for 6500 more and made the call with AQ, which had the big blind’s KK
drawing to one card in the deck. Sure enough, the K
appeared on the river and Rich leaped out of his seat in disgust. He was left with 14K after the hand.
Justin “truesyalose” Trusdell, who had been sending chips over to David Singer earlier in the day, just shipped more to Steve Jelinek. Jelinek raised to 900 on the button and Truesdell called in the big blind. The flop brought 952 and Truesdell led out for 1,100. Jelinek called and saw the A fall on the turn. Bother players checked and the river was the K. Truesdell bet 1,500 and Jelinek raised to 6,500. Truesdell stared him down for a minute, asking the player if he had the nuts or nothing, and finally folded to cut his stack down to 13.5K.
52 and Truesdell led out for 1,100. Jelinek called and saw the A fall on the turn. Bother players checked and the river was the K. Truesdell bet 1,500 and Jelinek raised to 6,500. Truesdell stared him down for a minute, asking the player if he had the nuts or nothing, and finally folded to cut his stack down to 13.5K.Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen had quite a wild ride during this level; when we caught up with him before last break, his chip count had soared to 42K. However, when we went back to the Brasilia Room to check on his play, he sat with only 3.5K in chips in front of him. Though he was down, Keven was definitely not out as he played aggressively and was unafraid to put all his chips in the middle. In one hand, from middle position, he pushed his whole stack in the middle and the action folded around to him. The very next hand, Keven again pushed all his chips out and got a call from the small blind for all 4,350 of his chips. Keven flipped KQ to his opponent’s JJ, but the board ran out K7629 and he doubled up to nearly 10K. Still short, Keven was still looking to make a move, but a lot more comfortable in the meantime.
Q to his opponent’s JJ, but the board ran out K7629 and he doubled up to nearly 10K. Still short, Keven was still looking to make a move, but a lot more comfortable in the meantime.
Ezra Galston got a double up at his table when he and another player got it all-in preflop with Galston holding AK to his opponent’s AJ. The board ran out QT449 and shot Ezra’s stack up to 34K. Adam “Roothlus” Levy (pictured right) also picked up a few chips without having to go to showdown in a hand where he picked up pocket kings. With the blinds at 100/200 a player raised to 700 and Adam flat called in the cut off and the big blind called as well. The flop came 9-7-5 rainbow and it checked around to Levy who bet out 1.4K. The big blind folded and the initial raiser flat called. Adam told us after the fact that he was afraid his opponent may have flopped a set on him, but when the K hit on the turn his hand improved vastly, but also put two spades on the board. The other player bet out 2.1K and Levy raised to 6K. His opponent thought before folding what he claimed was pocket queens and Adam took down the pot. He currently sits with 23K.
We also caught up with Matt “mattg1983″ Graham, who had a story for us. Graham raised to 750 with A-Q and a woman in seat one made the call. A player in seat 6 then moved all in for more than 11,000. Graham, fearing only the woman behind him, laid the hand down and the woman called with a pair of tens. The “idiot” who moved all in, as Graham referred to him, had K-Q and was eliminated when his hand failed to improve. Matt then said that if he had called he would have been sent packing, as the woman admitted she would have called Graham’s all in as well and would have made a set of tens to trump Graham’s pair of aces. Nice laydown, sir.
Here are the chip counts of some notable P5ers midway through Level 3:
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 67k
Brian Devonshire - 54k
Tom “werpennstate23″ Cummings - 50.5K
Darren Elias - 50K
Tony “tongni” Rivera - 50k
David “Bakes” Baker - 47.5K
David “Raptor517″ Benefield - 44k
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 41k
Kyle “thetruth503″ Zartman - 38K
Carter “ckingusc” King - 35K
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 33K
Justin “zeejustin” Bonomo - 29k
David “Davidp18″ Peters - 26k
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 26k
Leo “SuperFluous Man” Wolpert - 23k
Joseph “WSOPJoe” May - 23K
Court Harrington - 22.5K
Jon Wein - 22K
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 18k
Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong - 17K
Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman - 12K
Amit “amak316″ Makhija - 12K
Out: Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista, Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar, Scott “gunning4you” Seiver
“Whoa! Who Won that Pot?”
by Brett on 06.26.08, 11:29 pm
A large crowd gathered around Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman’s table in the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em w/Rebuys event. Freeman (pictured right), who was sitting with over 330K chips, got it all in preflop with Jeff “yellowsub” Williams and Albert Iverson, one of the tournament chip leaders. The hands:
Freeman: KK
Albert Iverson: AK
Williams: JJ
Players from every table (including the Stud Hi-Lo tournament going on in the same room) came over to watch the pocket kings of Freeman hold as he jumped out of his seat and got a fist pound from Eric Froelich. Even Men “The Master” Nguyen walked over and asked us “How you get it in with ace-king?” Williams was eliminated in 34th place and earned $14,904.
Freeman is the first player to hit the 750K mark in the tournament and is the chip leader by over 200K. Jamie “TheChronic420″ Rosen has also made his way back to 350K by outracing Nicolas Levi. Rosen’s QQ was able to hold against Levi’s AK and Levi was eliminated.
Also holding strong with 27 players remaining are Peter “Nordberg” Feldman (260K) and Eric “E-Fro” Froelich (175K). Eliminated in the past hour were Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen, Randy “Randers” Haddox and Justin “looshle” Pechie.
The $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Low that we mentioned is now in Level 4. Bryan Micon, Chris “SKOAL” Falconer, Bryan Devonshire and Brett “Gank” Jungblut are among the early chip leaders.
Mellow Yellow(sub)?
by Brett on 06.26.08, 6:51 pm
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams made a move early on in the restart of the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em w/Rebuys event. With the blinds at 800/1600, a short-stack moved all in for 9K and Williams made the call with TT, which held against his opponent’s A6 when the board revealed K96QK. After the hand, Jeff received a celebration warning from the dealer for doing an Icky Shuffle-type dance in his seat, and he responded with “Sorry, I’m just doing it for the reporters.” Williams then chipped up again two hands later when he re-shoved a player’s raise and induced a fold and is now up to 33K.
Jordan “scarface79″ Smith was one of the first eliminations of the day. Conor Tate raised to 4,100 from the cutoff and Smith re-raised his last 27,000 in from the big blind. Tate deliberated and finally made the call with KQ and had Smith looking for help with KJ. The 75552 board was no help to Jordan and he was eliminated.
Craig “MrCasino” Gray followed in Smith’s footsteps shortly after. A player in early position raised to 4,500 and Gray (pictured right) re-raised to 15,500 on the button, leaving a little more than 20,000 behind. The original raiser called and immediately shoved his remaining chips in on a Q93 flop. Gray made the call, saying “What did I do to myself,” and saw the bad news when his TT was behind the other player’s AQ. The board bricked for Gray and he was sent to the rail.
Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen took a massive hit to his stack at the 1K/2K level. Stammen raised to 5,100 from under the gun with QQ and a player in late position moved all-in for close to 50K. Action folded back to Stammen, who snap-called and found pleasant news when his opponent flipped up 66. The AT9 flop was kind to Keven, but the 6 on the river was a crushing blow and left Stammen with 25K. “It’s been like this all series,” Stammen said to us as he calmly walked back to his seat.
With 90 players remaining, here’s a look at the unofficial chip counts of some other notable players:
Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks - 215K
Jamie “TheChronic420″ Rosen - 130K
Peter “Nordberg” Feldman - 115K
Justin “Looshle” Pechie - 100K
Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman - 90K
Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka - 80K
Randy “Randers’ Haddox - 80K
Stu “thedonator” Paterson - 50K
Ben “bfineman” Fineman - 40K
Mike “SirWatts” Watson - 40K
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements - 15K
Italian Pirate Wins a Ton of Booty
by Jessica on 06.15.08, 3:09 pm
Max Pescatori took home the $2.5K PL HE/O bracelet last night, defeating Kyle “RedEye33″ Kloeckner in heads up play and winning $246,741in the process. Kloeckner earned $152,410 for his efforts. Other notable finishes at the table include Allen Cunningham, who placed 4th for $76,205, and Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa, who came in 6th for $48,876.
The $10K HU Championship event is down to the final four and today Vanessa Selbst, Kenny Tran, Alec Torelli, and Jonathan Jaffe will play down to a winner. Selbst (pictured left) is two wins away from picking up her second bracelet in as many events and amazingly took third in the heads-up event last year. The semifinal round will begin at 2:00 PT and the winners will then play a best-of-3 championship match.
Barry Greenstein will enter the $1,500 Razz final table as 2nd in chips with 243,000 as play begins at 3:00 PT. Brandon “BrandonPL” Leeds is third with 206,000.
Several online players are still among the field of 224 in Event #27 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold’em). Court Harrington (79.4K), Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan (65.6), Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen (61.5K), Billy Westom (32.4K) and Jason Gray (29.9) are still heathy and look to play into the evening as the field dwindles down to nine.
Cole “cts” South, Brian “tsarrast” Rast and Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis are all still playing for the enormous $817,781 first-place price in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/ Rebuys event. The tournament is filled with heavy-hitters, including chip leaders David Benyamine, Erick Lindgren and John Juanda.
And, finally, the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em and $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship will get underway today. The $3K NLHE just got kicked off at noon with more than 600 players in their seats. The Limit event will begin at 5:00 PT.
Good luck to all playing today!