WSOP 2008
Repeat Performance?
by Brett on 06.11.08, 3:32 pm
James “mig.com” Mackey will look to defend his $5K NLHE title when the event kicks off this afternoon. Last year, Mackey (pictured left) weaved his way through 640 players and a final table that included Michael Binger, Tex Barch, Nick Schulman and Mike Gracz to earn $730,740 and become the third-youngest bracelet winner ever. Last year’s final table lasted just 48 hands and two and a half hours — the fastest final table at the World Series since 2003.
So far we’ve seen Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth, Amit “amak316″ Makhija, Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers, Court Harrington and Scott “gunning4you” Siever filing into the Amazon Room to take their seats in what is certainly one of the most anticipated events of the series.
Also getting underway today will be the $3K HORSE Event at 5:00 PT. It is the first HORSE event of the year and the entry was upped from the $2,500 buy-in last year.
Concluding play this evening will be the $5K No-Limit 2-7 Draw w/ Rebuys Event, which features a loaded final table of Barry Greenstein, Mike Matusow, Erick Lindgren, Jeff Lisandro, Tony G, David Benyamine and Tom Schneider. Only 85 players entered but the first-place prize will be a monstrous $537,857.
The $1.5K PL Omaha Event will also resume today. Forty-six players remain in the field, including P5ers Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan (70K) and Jamie “The New” Robbins (60K), both of whom have healthy stacks.
One-Hundred twenty-five players will continue play in the $2K Limit Event at 3:00 PT and play down to the final nine tonight. Notable players still remaining in that event are Brett “gank” Jungblut, Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar and Mike Schneider.
It’s a busy day here at the Rio. Good luck to everyone playing!
Riskky Business
by Jill on 06.11.08, 3:18 am
Eliminated in 7th place at tonight’s final table for Event #16, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements took home $36,232 in his second final table appearance in this year’s World Series of Poker. From under the gun, Scott opened with a raise, only to be met by a reraise from chipleader Ted Forrest. The big blind also got in on the action, inspiring him to jam it all in when the action returned to him. Both players called and the board came 4
J5
Q5
. Scott mucked his hand and exited the tournament, making his third cash of the series and second final table elimination.
The $1.5K shootout has finally reached heads up play after nine and a half hours of play today and a marathon session of poker yesterday. After playing one of the longest sessions of poker on Day One, John “Ihave3pair” Strzemp was eliminated in 3rd place when he moved all-in on the river as a bluff and was called by Mike Schwartz, who held top pair. He will earn $129,675 for his efforts.
Both of the remaining players, Jason Young and Mike Schwartz, had an extremely long Day One as well, with their second tables not concluding until after 5am this morning. With less than seven hours off in between, fatigue is becoming a major factor in this final stage of play.
The $5K No-Limit 2-7 Draw w/ Rebuys also neared completion for the evening as the players duked it out for spots at the final table. Tom “durrrr” Dwan continued to push around his opponents with his big stack; he remained near the top of the count with 510K.
Nothing But Net
by Jessica on 06.11.08, 12:22 am
Over the past half an hour, progressively less poker is being played here in the Amazon room as more and more players become caught up in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. All of the televisions in the Amazon Room are either being used as tournament clocks or to broadcast the game. We have had to be careful where we stand as many players, who likely have interest in the game past simple team spirit, have been verbally abusing anyone who gets in their way.
Over at the 2-7 single draw event, Mike Matusow berated the tournament director for accidentally standing in front of the television. Many of the remaining players are craning their necks to try to catch the remaining minutes of the game. The media has dubbed the space between the tables and television in this area a “no fly zone” and are doing their best to avoid walking through there at all costs. One player who doesn’t seem particularly upset about being seated with the back to the television is Tom “durrrr” Dwan (pictured at left), who is listening to music on his headphones and continuing to build his already large chip stack. Even though the money bubble is still a few players away, Dwan appeared to be doing a nice job of maintaining aggression as the NBA money bubble was determined in the final minutes of the 4th.
In other news, the $1.5K Ladies Event has crowned Svetlana Gromenkova as the winner of the event after she defeated Anh Le heads up. On the final hand Svetlana and Anh got it all in pre-flop with pocket kings and A-5 respectively. The flop provided Le with a gut shot straight draw, but the turn and river were no help and she was eliminated in second place.
At the final table of the $2K Omaha Hi/Lo Event #15, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements’ stack looked dangerously low as the table is down to seven players after the elimination of Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke and Allan Enciso. Clements trailed the pack with 120K after losing a pot to Jim Pechac who flipped over a pair of eights on the river, not expecting to win. When we caught up with the table, the current chipleader, Ted Forrest, was bullying with his big stack and preventing much action from occurring. In order to win another bracelet, Clements must make a move - and fast. In the meantime, the players have taken a 90-minute dinner break and will be back with a vengeance at 10:30PM PST as they race for the bracelet.
In the $1.5K No-Limit Hold’em event, the field narrowed to three as Rory Monahan was eliminated in 4th for $82,582. The players have returned from dinner break and we will continue to update their progress.
AK Good
by Jessica on 06.10.08, 3:35 am
As players begin to drop at a quicker rate in the $1.5K shootout a couple of P5ers survived key double ups with AK. First Craig “MrCasino” Gray (pictured at right), who got as high as 100K before losing a good chunk of it bluffing into David Redlin’s quads, got it all in with AK
versus Thor Hansen’s 44. The board came K73AJ and Gray doubled up to 35K.
A few hands later, while the blinds were at 600/1200 ante 200 Casey “ccumney” Coleman raised under the gun to 3K and the player in the big blind (who had one of the larger stacks at the table) made the call. The flop came out AQ3 and the big blind checked. Casey then bet out 3.8K and his opponent check-raised to 10K total. Casey quickly moved all in for 17.2K more and the player thought for a few moments before making the call with A6. The turn and river came T7 and Casey now sits with just over 60K.
Recent eliminations include Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach and Brian “Like7″ Lamanna.
Over in Event #16, the $2K Omaha Hi/Lo, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements remains towards the top of the leaderboard despite losing a big pot shortly before the last break. Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke remains in the event, but has slipped down the chip counts substantially.
Finally, the $5K 2-7 single draw with rebuys event has lost just over 30 of the original 85 players and play has settled down substantially now that the rebuy period is over. Currently Tom “durrrr” Dwan, who confessed to never playing 2-7 single draw before today, sits atop the chip counts.
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.