WSOP 2008
Sowers Soars
by Jessica on 06.15.08, 10:37 pm
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers (pictured at left) is having a ball in the $3K NLHE. You would too if you had 52K in chips going into the dinner break. Sowers has been lively and talkative with his tablemates, including Shaun Deeb, as he continues to build to his already large stack of chips. Several other P5ers and notable online players have racked up their fair share of chips. Here are some other notables:
Ryan “youngluck” Young - 54K
Stuart “TheDonator” Patterson - 35K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 25K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 19.5K
Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista - 15K
Those who have been eliminated in the last few levels include Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks, Phil “USCPhildo” Collins, Shannon Shorr, and Scott “gunning4you” Seiver.
The $1.5K Razz even is 3-handed and Barry Greenstein continues to extend his chip lead over the other players. Brandon “BrandonPL” Leeds finished in 5th, taking home $33,081.
The $5K PLO w/ rebuys only has 29 players left in contention for the bracelet. Amongst those left are Cole “cts” South, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis, and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. Play will end tonight once 20 more people are eliminated and the final table is set.
Event #30, the $10K World Championship of LHE is underway and a small field of players are vying for the prestigious title. Some players we spotted in the field include Brock “t_soprano” Parker, Matt “mattster24″ Sterling, Chris “sooooted” Vaughn, and Joe Sebok.
Gray Clouds Subside for Jason
by Brett on 06.15.08, 9:04 pm
Jason Gray began today’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Day 2 with close to 30K chips — a below-average stack with a lot of room to make up on the chip leaders. That work has come quite easy to the Final Table Team member, as he’s chipped all the way up to 200K in only three levels to take over as one of the tournament’s chip leaders. Gray (pictured right) picked up a couple big pots early on with pocket nines — the second of which he called a short-stack’s all in blind and flopped top set.
Fellow P5ers haven’t had the same fortune thus far. Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan, who began the day with almost 70K, was just eliminated when he got his last 23K in preflop with K
2
but couldn’t oudraw AK
on a board of K
KQJ9.
Court Harrington and Felipe “Improved” Montenegro have also made recent exits as the field has thinned to 89 players. Montenegro’s K-K was unable to hold against A-4 all-in preflop for a 150K pot. With the average stack at 92K, here are the unoffical chip counts of remaining P5ers in Event #27:
Barry “BarryGS” Schultz - 140K
Justin “looshle” Pechie - 110K
Taylor “tdomeski” Douglas - 70K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 60K
Keven “stammdogg” Stammen - 60K
Brandon “BrandonPL” Leeds has been eliminated in 5th place of the $1,500 Razz event. Leeds earned $33,081 for his efforts. With three players remaining, Barry Greenstein is second in chips with 350K. Chip leader Chris Viox, who knocked Leeds out, has almost half the chips in play.
Rajkumar Eliminated
by Jessica on 06.15.08, 7:53 pm
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar (pictured at right) had been steadily building his chip stack in the $3K NLHE event until the following hand turned out to be a major setback. The small blind, Vivek in the big blind, and a player on the button saw a flop of KJ9. The small blind checked and Vivek bet 3.4K into a pot of 5K. The player on the button then moved all-in for his remaining 2.4K and the player in the small blind thought for a minute before re-raising all-in over the top. Rajkumar made the call for what was essentially the rest of his stack.
Vivek held J6 for a pair and a flush draw, but he turned out to be in worse shape than he thought when the player in the small blind revealed QT for the flopped straight with the bigger flush draw while the player on the button had a set of nines. The turn and river were no help to Rajkumar or the other player and Vivek was left with only 2K. He was eliminated later in the level.
Others who headed home in the past couple of levels include JC “PrtyPSux” Alvarado, Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements, Amit “amak316″ Makhija, and Justin Bonomo.
On a happier note, several other players continue to build their stacks, including a number of P5ers. Here are some of the most recent chip counts:
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers - 31K
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 27K
Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista - 22K
Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer - 18K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 18K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 15K
In the $1.5K Razz event, play is now six handed after Archie “The Greek” Karas was eliminated by Brandon “BrandonPL” Leeds in 7th place. Barry Greenstein had crippled Karas earlier, but Leeds delivered the final blow and now sits in 5th place with 150K.
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!
Greenstein Razzle Dazzles ‘Em
by Crystal on 06.15.08, 6:18 am
The final table of Event #26, the $1.5k Razz tournament, is now set. Barry Greenstein (pictured at right) is sitting 2nd in chips with 220k, while first place has around 350k. Because of the nature of the game, monster stacks can disappear much faster than they appeared, as 9th place finisher Frank Kassela demonstrated. He stayed near the top of the chip counts for a good portion of the day, only to have a few major hands decimate his stack. Greenstein has consistently been near the top of the chip counts and is definitely going to make a great run at the bracelet tomorrow. He will go to battle against some formidable opponents including the legendary Archie “The Greek” Karas. The eight remaining players will all return Sunday at 3pm to battle it out for that coveted bracelet and the $157,619 top prize.
Epic Event #28, the Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys tournament, continued to last long into the wee hours of the morning in the Amazon room. The standoff between Phil Hellmuth and Jeff “yellowsub” Williams continued, fueled now by the addition of Daniel Negreanu, Freddy Deeb, Robert Williamson III, and others to the superstar table. We caught up with Jeff as he had raised on the button to make it 6400. Daniel Negreanu folded when the action came back around to him, but Hellmuth re-popped him to 15,800. After a very long time in the tank, Hellmuth tried to persuade Jeff to fold: “I’ll take this one, kid. You take the next one.”
Jeff eventually folded, claiming to have an ace. Negreanu also claimed to have an ace, but Hellmuth said they both folded correctly; he claimed to have both black aces and two hearts. Negreanu laughed heartily at this statement while Hellmuth collected the pot.
Shortly afterward, Negreanu raised 4K preflop; in the big blind, Jeff called. The board came QQK and both checked the flop and the turn, which was the 5. The river ran out 4, Jeff bet out and induced a fold from Negreanu to buy the pot.
Finally, in a hand late into the last level of the evening, Jeff raised on the button to 4K. Hellmuth, in the big blind, called and the flop came T59. First to act, Hellmuth checked. Jeff followed it up with a bet, and Hellmuth called. The turn came the 7 and both players checked. The river card was the 3; Jeff checked and Hellmuth raised to 15K. After a long time thinking, Jeff called him down and Hellmuth flipped over K35Q for the king-high flush. Jeff shook his head in disgust and mucked his cards before telling Hellmuth he could bet at anything and it would magically turn into the nuts.
Play in this event is done for the evening, but other P5ers remain. Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis has 65K in chips, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond sits comfortably with 150K, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan (pictured at left) defends his big stack of 200K. The tournament will resume at 3PM PST tomorrow, with only 56 players remaining.