WSOP 2008
WSOPE Day 4, West Out Early
by Court on 10.01.08, 8:42 am
The final 24 players are back at the tables for the playdown day at the World Series of Poker Europe, presented by Betfair. The TV crews are out in full force, hovering around all three
tables to catch the action. The first big event of the day was the elimination of tournament short stack Tim “Tmay420″ West (right).
West came into the day with only 63,500 and his chips were quickly in the middle as Tim moved in on one of the first hands over the top of an opening raise. Peter “#1Pen” Neff called from the big blind and the initial bettor got out of the way leaving Tim heads up with Neff. Peter was way out in front with his pocket tens against West and his pocket threes. The tens help up eliminating West in 24th place for a payout of £28,960, equal to $51,542 in US dollars.
When the action started today 2 players were missing. Brian “sbrugby” Townsend came in a few hands late, mentioning that traffic was terrible. He is now seated at the main feature table after missing only a few hands. Justin “Boosted J” Smith was also a late arrival, but like Townsend slipped into his seat at the table before many hands had passed.
Pictured Left: Both had the benefit of having a tournament official stack up their chips for them so once they were at the tables they could jump right in to focusing on playing.
TV crews have the access limited for all other media, but we will do our best to keep up with the situation and bring you as much information about the day as we can.
Dinner Breaking, Pressure Builds
by Court on 09.30.08, 3:16 pm
With 38 players left the clock ran out on the 3rd level of the day sending the players to dinner break without quite reaching the money. They now have the next two hours to ponder money bubble and mid end game strategy. Peter “#1Pen” Neff saw some of his chip stack slide back over to Brain “sbrugby” Townsend (left) who has bounced back nicely from his previous setback. Townsend was able to double through Peter, bringing his stack back to 200k while Neff dropped to under 250k.
Since the field was cut to only 5 remaining tables everyone has been moved out to the main floor where the feature table has been throughout. With this consolidation there are now TV crews moving everywhere about the area, with other media being all but shut out for the time being.
Justin “Boosted J” Smith has been impressive in a unique way. He has managed to be at the top of the chip counts for pretty much the whole tournament, and he has done so without drawing much attention. He isn’t flailing around in big pots and taking any coinflip he can find to get chips, he is just slowly pounding away at any and all weakness and taking what is available to him. Often the most dangerous players are the ones you hear the least about, and Smith fits the bill for that so far in the World Series of Poker Europe.
After dinner play will continue for two more levels, or until only 18 players remain. With the money bubble and hand for hand play still to come getting down to 18 is unlikely but the field will almost surely drop into the 20’s by days end. Stay tuned for updates…
Here are the P5ers still in at this stage:
Justin “Boosted J” Smith
Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman
Peter “#1Pen” Neff
Brian “sbrugby” Townsend
Tim “Tmay420″ West
Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman
Patience Pays
by Court on 09.29.08, 8:27 pm
After battling all day with a short stack, there has been an upturn for Tim “Tmay420″ West. Coming out of the last break of the day with around 16k it took Tim less than half an hour to run his stack up to 65k. It took a come from behind win with his A-8 all in against the A-Q of Peter Gould to get started, but after that double up the next one came with his pocket kings against pocket sixes.
“It was nice to look down and see kings,” Tim said. “It had been a while.” The kings hand was not all in preflop, but what didn’t go in pre got in on the flop where Tim’s overpair to the board held up against pocket sixes.
Former tablemate Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar ran pocket jacks into Chris Williamsson’s pocket aces and has been eliminated from the tournament. Williamsson has been on a tear, picking up aces and kings, and then more aces, and more aces. In Aguiar’s last hand the two went back and forth raising and reraising till all the chips went in, but by the time Aguiar got a bad feeling he had to much in the pot and too little left to let it go.
Ben Grundy (right) was not far behind Aguiar. After losing a pot to Negreanu, Ben moved in the next hand from the button for 17,400. Daniel thought from the small blind for a minute before saying “I just found these [chips] so I guess I’ll call.” Then before Daniel had his hands off the stack of 17,400 chips the player in the big blind said all in, prompting a “No” from Daniel as he jokingly acted like he was going to take his 17k back.
Once the joking was over Daniel went into math class to make his decision. The other player’s all in represented 36k on top of the 17,400 the three players already had in the pot. He decided he was getting 3 to 1 on his money and pointed out that he had to beat both players. “I can’t be in that good of shape,” Daniel said before somewhat reluctantly folding. Ben then showed the A
3
while his opponent had the AK
. Daniel said he was dominated and on the Q726Q board the AK held up to eliminate Grundy. Daniel said he would also have lost to the AK.
Daniel’s relatively new training site has had a lot of success, but one of the key instructors at the site saw his WSOPE event end late in day 2. Adam “A_Junglen” Junglen (left) and his PokerVT patch have both made their exit from the tourney.
Hanging On
by Court on 09.29.08, 6:10 pm
Around 17 hours of play have passed since the players sat down with their starting stacks of 20k chips. Tim “Tmay420″ West finished Day 1A a mere quarter shy of his starting stack and has been short for the entirity of day 2 play. He is now down in the 10 big blind area where options are pretty much limited to pushing all in or folding your hand.
If good things come to those who are patient, there should be a bright future for West. He has been the epitome of patience, folding ragged hand aftrer ragged hand. Finally he did move in for exactly 9k (blinds are 500 / 1k with a 100 ante) and picked up the blinds. Tim showed the 2 and another player at the table said “He’s not a super nit.” Even playing the short stack West looks to be having as much fun as anyone. Next up for him will almost surely be a double up or a bust.
The table with West and Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar (right) is short stacked all around with no huge stacks and most of the players below average. A new addition to the table picked off a player when his aces held up against AK, and when the next table broke Jeff “ActionJeff” Garza found his way to the empty seat to the right of Tim and two seats to the left of Aguiar. “Finally they brought a fish to the table,” Aguiar said in a sarcastic tone about Jeff’s arrival.
Brian “sbrugby” Townsend has jumped to the top of the chip counts, sitting with 260k. Over at the feature table Jamie Rosen saw his day come to an end shortly after dinner. “Up and down,” pretty much summed up what Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman thought of his day so far.