WSOP 2008
Minieri Steamrolling on Final Table Bubble
by AdamJ on 06.18.08, 3:29 am
Nearly ten feet away from about a dozen fans watching his every move, Dario Minieri’s aggressiveness had the floor staff searching for chip racks.
With chips stacked six racks high and a colony of chips left on the felt in front of him, Minieri (pictured right) has seen his chip stack go from 300k to 1.8 million in the last two rounds of the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31.
Minieri has been raising nearly every pot and his fearlessness has got him busting opponents with hands as weak as middle pair that were good.
Minieri’s aggressiveness has even made Scotty Nguyen merely an onlooker sitting to Minieri’s right. Despite not playing many hands, Nguyen’s mouth was as active as always, reporting to the players at the other table about Dario’s demolition derby.
“The young gun is taking em’ all down baby,” said Nguyen in his standard high pitch tone.
Play is down to one seven-handed table, breaking when one more opponent busts. Minieri has roughly a third of the chips in play.
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak busted out right before the consolidation when his 3-bet all-in preflop with A
K
was called by 88 and Rusnak failed to improve taking home 38k.
Rusnak’s stack had been on a nosedive prior to his elimination, going from 650 to 200k after he lost two preflop all-in hands with his pocket tens to pocket kings and his pocket jacks losing to Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer’s utg shove with pocket queens.
Justin “Fluffdog” Filtz (500k), Seth “grtwhitehoop” Fischer (320k), and Scotty Nguyen (400k) will also be battling Minieri’s stack to make the final table.
The $10K Limit Hold-em has come to an end and Rob Hollink of the Netherlands is the world champion. He defeated Jerrod Ankenman, co-author of the Mathematics of Poker, after a lengthy heads up match and will be taking home $496,931 in addition to the bracelet.
Shortly after Hollink was awarded his bracelet, John Phan was given a bracelet of his own for taking down the $3K No Limit Hold Em event. This was definitely the hot ticket tonight at the Rio as a crowd of people, including Joe Sebok and Jason “jp osu” Potter, gathered around Phan and his heads up opponent, Johnny Neckar.
The crowd reached its peak when it was announced by the tournament director that the two players had both agreed to move all-in dark on the next hand. The dealer then dealt out the flop, turn, and river and the two players took turns revealing their hole cards. This continued for a couple of hands, including one in which Phan doubled up when his 7 high was good against Neckar’s 2-4, before the two returned to a more conventional game of poker. Only a few minutes later the duo got it all in pre-flop with Phan holding A9 and Neckar holding Q
J. An ace on the river sealed the deal for Phan and he was awarded the bracelet and first prize of $434,789.
Minieri and Rusnak Closing in on Final Table
by Jessica on 06.18.08, 12:46 am
A
trio of online players are making a final table run at the 2.5k 6-max NL WSOP Event #31 with 18 players left. Dario Minieri (pictured right) has position on Scotty Nguyen and has Nguyen outchipped by a small margin at 300k to Nguyen’s 275k.
P5er Frank “Round42″ Rusnak has a little above average stack with 300k as does his table mate Bruno Fitoussi. Sandwiched between Rusnak and Fitoussi is Justin ”Fluffdog” Filtz, who one of the biggest stacks at the table with 493k.
Filtz has been eyeing the bracelet after turning 21 eleven days ago. Although Filtz has some impressive results online, including a 20th place finish in an FTOPS event in March, he considers himself more of a cash game player that specializes in heads-up play.
If Filtz is able to win a heads-up match in this event, he would miss being the youngest bracelet winner by one day at 21 years and 12 days.
Meanwhile the current record holder for youngest bracelet winner, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis (pictured at left) is getting low on chips in the $5K Stud8 Championship event. Steve lost a big pot when he paid off Davidson Matthew’s trip queens after his low draw developed into two pairs, fours and eights. James “mig.com” Mackey has also dropped far below his 10K starting stack. With the limits at 250-500 ante 50 and a 75 chip bring-in Billirakis and Mackey have 2.5K and 4K respectively. With the level coming to a close in less than ten minutes, the two will surely be looking for a good spot to try and double up.
One player who successfully doubled up a couple of times is Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich who was as low as 1100 chips just an hour ago. After scooping several pots with two pair when no one else in the hand made a qualifying low, Rich now has 16K. He has been involved in a number of hands and always seems to walk away with at least half the pot every time. Most recently, Rich split a large, multi-player pot with Todd Brunson when he made Qs and 8s on sixth, which was good enough for the high hand while Brunson was the only player to make a qualifying low.
Brock “t_soprano” Parker was recently eliminated from the $10K Limit Hold Em Championship Event in 5th place when his Q
8 failed to catch up with Jerrod Ankenman’s A9. He earned $102,460 for the finish.
Parker Taking it to the Limit
by Crystal on 06.17.08, 9:45 pm
Brock “t_soprano” Parker is still at the final table of event #30 the $10k LHE tournament. After coming into the day short stacked, Parker (pictured right) has managed to win some big pots and is currently 4th out of the 6 remaining players in chips. He hasn’t been very active in hands for the past hour or so, obviously trying to pick his spots carefully and get his money in with the best hands he can. Andy Bloch was just eliminated in 7th place ensuring that Parker and the other 5 remainng players are guaranteed to take home at least $102,460
Over in the $2.5k NLHE six-handed tournament Billy Westom, Shannon Shorr, Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen and Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier have been eliminated.
Billy Westom got all his chips in with AT against Bill Chen’s JJ and failed to improve and was knocked out in 40th place good for $8,379.
Shannon Shorr got all his money in with almost the same hand as Westom, the AT and found he was dominated by his opponents AJ. The flop came with both an ace and a jack and Shorr was sent to the rail in 32nd place to claim his $9,775 prize.
Keven Stammen was knocked out in 24th place when his QQ was bested by a player who made a flush with their AK on a T5238 board. Stammen recieves $15,594 for his great run.
Jason Mercier was one of the chip leaders for a good portion of the day but he doubled up Scotty Nguyen when his AT couldn’t catch up to Scotty’s pocket sevens. After the hand, both Mercier and Scotty were left with exactly 160k in chips and got involved in another big pot on the very next hand. Scotty opened with a raise to 11k and Mercier pushed his entire 160k stack into the pot. Scotty called with his TT which dominated Mercier’s 77 and when the board hit neither player, Mercier was eliminated by the prince of poker himself who said “I can’t be pushed around, baby” as Mercier was leaving the table. Mercier’s 22nd place finish was good enough to net him $15,594.
Event #33, the $5k Seven Card Stud H/L World Championship has been underway for almost two hours now and a number of notable players have been spotted in the field including Jordan “octavian_c” Rich, Thayer Rasmussen, Anna Wroblewski, Justin Bonomo, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements, and Barry Greenstein. In a field filled with well known pro players this event is sure to be an exciting one and we will keep you posted as play progresses.
Business as Usual for Riskky
by Brett on 06.17.08, 6:27 pm
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements has a knack for building a large stack early in tournaments. The two-time bracelet winner is already near the top of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em leaderboard as it approaches Level 4. Just before the 30-minute break before Level 2, Clements (pictured right) got involved in a three-way pot with JT and led out for 175 on a 983 flop. Both players called and then checked to Clements when the A hit on the turn. Clements bet 300 and only the player on the button called. The lovely 7 fell on the river and Clements counted out 900 chips and induced a call by the button, who let his frustration be known when he saw Scott’s straight.
Clements then built his stack to 9K when his QQ held against the TT of an opponent when they got it all in preflop. Clements made a full house on the turn to leave the player drawing dead.
Theo “pittrounder” Tran (9K), Court Harrington (7.5K), Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby (6.5K), Cal Spears (5K) and Anna “VietCutie” Wroblewski (5K) have also been chipping up early in Event #32.
The final table of the $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em event included a trio of P5ers, but one has just been taken out in eighth place. Tony “Bond18″ Dunst shoved his last 130K at the 10K/20K blind level and got a call from Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin (pictured left), who flipped up 89 and found that he was a huge underdog to the KK of Dunst. The T87 flop gave Vengrin some hope, and the J on the turn gave him the lead as Dunst was left hoping for a diamond on the river. The T eliminated Tony, who earned $54,344. Vengrin, however, is now the overwhelming chip leader with 1.4 million. Johnny Neckar is second with 700K. P5er Thuy “ShesNoGood” Doan is holding stong with 420K, good for fourth at the table.
The $10,000 Limit Championship got underway at 3:00 PT. Brock “t_soprano” Parker entered the day as the short stack but has picked up few small pots early. We’ll keep track of his progress throughout the day.
Let’s Get It Started!
by Crystal on 06.17.08, 3:20 pm
Getting the players (or maybe the dealers?) pumped up for today’s $1.5k NLHE event #32, the Black Eyed Peas song “Let’s Get It Started” was pumping through the sound system in the Amazon room again today as a field of nearly 2,000 players filed in to take their seats. The registration line for this event was out the door of the registration room and wrapped around through the hall 20 minutes before the start of the tournament so the total number of players will easily climb higher before registration closes.
There are numerous P5ers hitting the felt today in this immense field including Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar (pictured right), Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck, Senovio “DorsalFin” Ramirez, and Andy “BKiCe” Seth. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on these and many other P5ers as the day progresses.
Last night the final table of the $10k World Championship of LHE (event #30) was set and Brock “t_soprano” Parker is coming into the final table as the short stack with only 166k in chips while the current chip leader Aaron Katz has over 1.2 Million. Eric “EFro” Froehlich was eliminated in 12th place when his KQ couldn’t catch up to the AA of J.C. Tran on a JT835 board. Froehlich takes home $35,861 for his great finish in this tournament. The final table will begin playing at 3 pm this afternoon.