WSOP 2008
Empty Seat at Table 50
by Brett on 07.04.08, 7:43 pm
Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman, who appeared to be in hiding for much of today with his jacket pulled up over his face, has officially been erased from the Main Event field after busting in the past level. Fischman (pictured left) got all of his chips in on a 9
72
board with 99
against an opponent’s T8. The 3 on the turn gave the other player a flush and Fischman was unable to fill up on the river.
Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski ran also into problems earlier, chasing a flush draw on the flop and hitting a running two pair on the turn and river, but paid off a higher two pair to cut his stack to 9K. He currently sits at 8.5K but still seems composed. We joked with Jeff earlier about getting 1-1 odds that he’d make the final table, to which he replied “You got screwed!”
Shortly after we wrote about Shaun Deeb and Tom “sbrounder” West’s table in the last update, it was broken and the friends were sent their separate ways. Deeb is far from alone at his new table though — both Steve “gboro780″ Gross and Theo “pitrounder” Tran were already seated there and now it has become one of the most stacked tables in play today.
Cardrunners’ Mike “Schneids” Schneider has been steadily building his chips since being moved to his new table. We spotted him raising to 600 with the blinds at 100/200. The player in the hijack called and they saw a flop of Q8
6. Schneider (pictured right) bet out 1K and his opponent quickly called. When the K hit on the turn Mike checked and the other bet out 2K. Schneider thought briefly, then made the call. Mike checked again after the 8 on the river and the other player fired out 7K. Schneider decided to call and his opponent turned over 99 and Mike revealed K-10 to scoop the pot with top pair. After that, he was up to 38K.
When PocketFives caught up with Stu “thedonator” Paterson midway through Level 2, he was raking in a pot with pocket jacks to get back his starting stack of 20K. He joked with his opponent, “Finally, now we can play again. We’re even.” Presumably, he’s been head-to-head with his tablemate before and his spirits were high. He finished the level with 26K in chips.
Meanwhile, Stuart “zpaceman” Taylor bet out a few tables over with 32K behind. After a flop of 976, his one remaining opponent checked to him and he fired out 850 into the pot. His opponent folded and he increased his stack to 35K. Stuart reported that the last level has been slow but comfortable.
Players have just left the Amazon Room to take their second break of the day and blinds will increase to 150/300 when they return at 4:58 PT. Here’s a look at some current chip counts:
Mike “SirWatts” Watson - 58K
Todd “DanDruff” Witteles - 38.5K
Marco “KILL-BILL” Liesy - 38K
Todd “nsxt2″ Arnold - 37K
Mike “Schneids” Schneider - 36K
Jason Young - 35.5K
Paul “ComeOnPhish” Lieu - 31K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 30.5K
Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert - 29.5K
Blair Rodman - 24K
Theo “pitrounder” Tran - 21.5K
Peter “Nordberg” Feldman - 21K
Shaun Deeb - 18K
Steve “gboro780″ Gross - 14K
Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth - 11.5K
Matt “SamENole” Smith - 11.5K
Brian “Wing-n-prayer” Reingold -11.5K
Matt “SamENole” Smith - 11.5K
Tim “EightLarge” Vansant - 9K
Eliminated this hour: Micah “mordan” Hendrix
To Reload or Not to Reload?
by Crystal on 06.29.08, 3:39 pm
The $10k World Championship of Pot-Limit Omaha got started at noon today here in the Amazon room with around 240 entrants when play began. The field has since grown to more than 320 players and registration will stay open until the end of level two. We’ve already spotted some P5ers in this smaller field including Jamie “TheNew” Robbins, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Eric “EFro” Froehlich, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, Stu “The Donator” Patterson, and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements.
While in most of the other WSOP events this year the starting stack has been double the buy-in for the event, players begin this tournament with 10k in tournament chips plus a red reload chip (pictured left) that is good for another 10k chips whenever the player chooses to use it. Players can elect to use it right at the beginning, to make their starting stack 20k while others may wait until they need the extra chips. At the end of level three, the extra 10k will be added to any player’s stack that hasn’t already used their reload chip.
The final tables of both the $50k HORSE event #45 and the $2k NLHE event #48 will start this afternoon. The HORSE final table is fileld with big name pros including P5’s own Barry Greenstein who comes into the final table with the 3rd largest chip stack as he tries to win his 2nd bracelet this year and his 4th overall bracelet.
The $2k NLHE final table will be led by chip leader Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson who has more than 2.1 million. The final table will begin play at 3 pm where Marco hopes his amazing run in this event will lead straight to his first WSOP bracelet.
CrazyMarco, Roothlus Chip Up
by Jill on 06.28.08, 12:30 am
Players recently returned from their dinner break in the $2K No-Limit Hold’em event, ready for action. The original field of 2,317 has been reduced to 480 in the last level, condensing play to one section of the Amazon Room. The average chip stack sat at 18K.
Several PocketFivers made moves to chip up, including Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, who has built a fortress of chips and is near the top of the official chip counts with 73K. Adam “Roothlus” Levy (pictured at left) also made small moves to increase his stack. In one example of position play that we witnessed, Levy min-raised on the button and got two callers. After the flop, he bet out to take down the pot uncontested. As we watched, his strategy of taking down small and medium-sized pots was working - he moved up to 27K in chips.
Meanwhile, PocketFives caught up to Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade’s table as he went all in for 13K on a board of 9K2 against one other player. His opponent, sporting an Intellipoker patch, asked him, “What? Do you have a king? A flush draw? You can’t have a flush draw!” before folding his hand. Tristan looked up and grinned as he took down the pot. Carter “ckingusc” King sat across from Tristan at the table, nursing a short stack of 10K. He accosted two PocketFives staff members in his quest to find out who Tristan was. He succeeded as Tristan finally introduced himself and crisis was averted. Settle down, boys - we’re covering you both.
Other recent drama included the elimination of Stu “thedonator” Patterson, who sat in the big blind with 7K in chips behind. He jammed all his chips in the middle and was instantly called by the small blind. When Stu flipped over AJ, he sighed and found he was behind the other player’s A-K. The board was no help and Stu made his way to the rail.
Brett “gank’ Jungblutt was recently eliminated from the $1.5K Stud Hi/Lo event in 54th place. His finish was enough to garner him $2,450. Craig “MrCasino” Gray is one of 38 players remaining in the event. When we last saw him, he was scooping a pot and increasing his chip stack to 40K.
Meanwhile, the $50K HORSE event continues on with Day 3 of play and Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein is still towards the top of the leaderboard. Several notable young players saw their bracelet dreams come to an end today including Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Steve Sung, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan.
Mackey Riding High
by Crystal on 06.26.08, 3:21 pm
After day 1 of the massive $50k HORSE event, James “mig.com” Mackey (pictured right) is the chip leader going into day two with 214k. In a field filled with big name pros, online players are definitely making their presence known such as recent bracelet winner Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond who starts today with 161k. Other players still in the hunt include Brian “tsarrast” Rast (132k), Tom “durrrr” Dwan (109k), Justin “zeejustin” Bonomo (80k), and Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko (41k). Well known pros David Williams and Phil Hellmuth weren’t able to make it past day 1 and were among the few players eliminated last night. Play resumes at 2 pm today and we’re sure to see eliminations start coming at faster rate as the blinds and antes continue to rise.
Also restarting this afternoon is event #44, the $1k NLHE w/Rebuys tournament. Day 2 will begin with 115 players including Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks and Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka who are near the top of the chip counts with 154k and 116k. Stu “TheDonator” Patterson had a good first day as he comes into day 2 with 95k and Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen will start the day with 80k.
Just getting started in the Amazon room is event #46 the $5k NLHE six-handed event with over 550 players registered so far. These short handed events have tended to play out fast and furious at this year’s WSOP and we expect this event to be no different. We’ve already spotted numerous P5ers in the field such as Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan, Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, and Ryan “Daut44″ Daut. We’ll keep you updated on their progress as the day moves forward.
Stalemate in the O8
by Jill on 06.24.08, 10:25 pm
Minutes ago, players ceased for their 90-minute dinner break in Event #43, the $1.5K Pot Limit Omaha 8 tournament. Prior to their refueling opportunity, several PocketFivers remained patient and waiting for the right opportunity to make a move.
We caught up with Chris “SKOAL” Falconer (pictured at left), who guarded a stack of 8,600 and reported that he’d had three times to move up the count to 20K but was rivered or had to fold. He explained that his earlier run in the tournament had him down to nearly fumes, but the key to his ongoing success in the WSOP has been patience, patience, patience. Though the average stack at the start of the break was a hair over 12K, Chris remained optimistic about his chances as he doubled up in the last level.
Meanwhile, Eric “Rizen” Lynch was checking down the river when we visited his table after what looked like some aggressive preflop action in the pot. His opponent was quite surprised when his hand held and Eric threw his cards to the dealer; Eric claimed to muck A-K, but didn’t hit a thing on the board. His patience was paying off as his stack rose to an above-average 13K.
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, however, was not content to stay out of the line of fire and was getting nowhere fast. PocketFives found Garrett with a 9K stack, seated at a table across from a big-stacked Joe Hachem. When Garrett was in the big blind for 400, the cutoff limped and the player on the button made it 1,800. Garrett sighed as he folded. The next hand, from the small blind Garrett saw four players limp in, including Hachem. He completed the blind and the board came 3J8. Two early players checked, the third short stack moved in for almost all his chips, and Hachem called. Again, Garrett folded to the action and forfeited his blinds while the short stack chopped the pot with Hachem.
However, the next hand on the button, the same early short stack moved in, one opponent called, and Garrett raised to a total of 6,200. He flipped over AA79 to his opponent’s 2-3-8-6. The board ran out 34257 and Garrett doubled his opponent up. His stack was down to 5.5K — about the same as he held an hour ago.
Regardless of the loss, Garrett fared much better than other players of note who were recently eliminated: Rolf Slotboom and Stu “TheDonator” Patterson recently took their leave. As of the break, here are chip counts for those still fighting:
Matt “SamENole” Smith - 26K
Dan “Stainley88″ Adams - 20K
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 15K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 13K
Chris “SKOAL” Falconer - 8.6K
Shannon Shorr - 8.5K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 5.5K