WSOP 2008
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!
Ship It Mike’s Way
by Brett on 06.14.08, 7:28 pm
Mike “shipitthisway” McNeil defeated Andy Black in Round 4 of the $10,000 NLHE Heads Up Championship to advance to the round of 16. McNeil (pictured left) chipped away at Black before finally getting it in with A
6 against Black’s J
T and rivered a flush to pick up the win. We’re still awaiting the announcement of his next opponent, as two matches are still in progress, but McNeill doesn’t seem concerned. The high-stakes heads up cash player is one of the favorites of those still remaining to win the $539,056 jackpot.
Other notable players moving on to Round 5 were Vanessa Selbst, David Williams, Gavin Griffin, Robert Mizrachi and Emil “whitelime” Patel, who took second place in Full Tilt Poker’s inagural $25K Heads Up event at the end of last month. Patel lost to David Singer in the championship match and earned $320,000.
The $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em final table is down to its final six players. Blair “blur5f6″ Hinkle has climbed up to 1.2 million chips, second to David Steicke’s 2.07 million. Blair is trying to match his brother Grant’s achievement of winning a bracelet in this year’s World Series.
Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa is vying for a bracelet of his own in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha Event. Depa is 3/7 in chips with nearly 400K, trailing Kyle Kloeckner and Allen Cunningham.
Gavin Fun
by Jessica on 06.14.08, 6:08 pm
Round 4 of the $10K Heads Up event has been running less than an hour, but already players are making quick work of their opponents. Recent bracelet winner Vanessa Selbst was the first to advance to the Sweet 16 and shortly on her heels was Gavin Griffin (pictured at right), who won his match after the following hand transpired:
With starting stacks of 160K and the blinds at 1K/2K, Griffin raised to 5K total and Alex Kostritsyn made the call. The flop came 4
3
2 and Kostritsyn checked. Griffin bet out 8K and Alex raised 10.5K on top. Griffin thought for a moment before raising again for 30K more. Kostritsyn then moved all-in for another 35K or so and Griffin called with AJ to his KK. The turn came T and the river was a king, but the K, which gave Griffin the winning flush.
The 2,706 person field of the $1.5K NLHE Event #27 has been narrowed to 1,970 already and several players are starting to build their stacks. Here are some chip counts we spotted heading into the break:
13K - Craig “MrCasino” Gray
7.5K - Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul
7K - Court Harrington
6.6K - Scott “ssitron” Sitron
6K - Mike “wiscomurray” Murray
4.7K - Michael “moneymike10″ Prepelica
Other players, like Joe Sebok, made an early exit in the event. Joe was eliminated in Level 1 of play when he got it all-in preflop with A-K to Roy Winston’s pocket queens. The board came out 9 high and Winston was the benefactor of an early double up. In addition to Sebok, Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, Nick “fu_15″ Maimone, Scott “gunning4you” Seiver, and Shane “shaniac” Schleger also made early exits.
A Blair Affair
by Brett on 06.14.08, 3:24 pm
Blair “blur5f6″ Hinkle will enter today’s $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em final table second in chips and attempt to pick up his first-ever WSOP bracelet. Hinkle (1.03 million, pictured right) trails only Andrew Jeffreys (1.05 million) and will be seated to Jeffreys’ left when play begins at 2:00 PM PT. Blair’s brother Grant has already won the hardware this year by taking down Event #2 ($1,500 NLHE).
Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa will also be seeking his first bracelet when the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha final table begins at 3:00 PT. Depa will have to make his way through a tough group of players including Max Pescatori, Minh Ly and Allen Cunningham. A prize of $246,471 will be awarded to the winner.
Events resuming play today will be the $10,000 NLHE Heads Up and $1,500 Razz. Barry Greenstein is the chip leader of the Razz event, which will start at 3:00 PT. Also among the 100 players still left are Brett “gank” Jungblut, Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul and Mike “SirWatts” Wattel. Thirty-two of the original 256 players are alive in the $10K Heads Up Event. Here are the matchups of the the remaining P5ers in Round 4:
Emil Patel vs. Michael “worldsgrtest” Banducci
Andy Black vs. Michael “shipitthisway” McNeil
Daniel “Ansky” Stern vs. David Williams
Matt “hazards21″ Giannetti vs. Michael Mizrachi
The $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Event (#27) has just begun and over 2,600 entrants have made their way into the Amazon Room with more expected. Phil Hellmuth is the defending champion and will certainly be making that fact known to his table –and surrounding tables.
The $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/ Rebuys will get underway at 5:00 PM. Stay tuned to PocketFivesLive for coverage on all of the events in what will be a very busy and entertaining day at the Rio!
HoosierAlum Hysteria!
by Jill on 06.14.08, 6:04 am
Event #22’s $3K HORSE tournament has finally ended and Jens Voertmann is the winner. Voertmann takes home $182,822 and a bracelet for his victory. On the final hand, all the money was in on 3rd street of a Stud high/low hand and although Doug Ganger made two pair, eights and nines on 4th street, Voertmann caught a pair of jacks on 6th and 7th to go with his fives in the hole to make a better two pair. Although Voertmann held the chip lead going into heads-up play, second-place finisher Ganger played agressively and stole the lead away at one point. Voertmann grinded his stack back up during the Stud and Stud high/low rounds to take out Ganger and secure his first major tournament win.
The $2K No-Limit Hold’em challenge has reached the final table and completed play for the evening. Nine players return tomorrow to compete for the $507,563 grand prize and bracelet. Meanwhile, the $2.5K Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha game has twelve players remaining in competition for the bracelet; Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa remains healthy in the slow-moving game as the hours grow longer and more yawns contagiously spread throughout the room. Depa recently knocked out one of the short stacks remaining in the tourney. The action went as follows: Depa raised preflop to 17K, the small blind pushed all-in for a total of 22K and Depa easily called the additional 5K. When they flipped over their cards, Depa held AJ to the small blind’s AT. The board ran out 83255 and Depa managed to add chips to his growing stack. Allen Cunningham dominated the top of the chip counts in the event, guarding more than twice the chips of the next biggest stack. Depa will have plenty of catching up to do as they grind the end of this tournament!
Table match-ups have been set for Day 2 of the $10K Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em event; plenty of online players advanced to the next round. A sample of the exciting head-to-head action lineups tomorrow:
Emil Patel vs. Michael “worldsgrtest” Banducci
Andy Black vs. Michael “shipitthisway” McNeil (pictured at left)
Alex Jacob vs. Jonathan Jaffe
Scott Montgomery vs. Isaac Haxton
Matt “hazards21″ Giannetti vs. Michael Mizrachi
Play for Event #26, the $1.5K Razz tournament, has come to a close this evening, with 106 players remaining of the original field of 453. One of the last hands of the evening came to a dramatic close, as Barry Greenstein knocked out both short-stacked Kenna James and Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich in one hand. Greenstein’s 3-K-A-2-8-9-6 held, and his 31K chip stack placed him amongst the leaders going into Day 2. Other players coming back tomorrow include Brett “Gank” Jungblut, Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul, and Lacey Jones.