WSOP 2008
TheDonator Not So Charitable, Busts Harman
by Jill on 06.21.08, 2:16 am
Amidst a field of star-studded live pros, Stu “thedonator” Patterson (pictured at right) continued to defend his chipstack in Event #37, the $10K Omaha 8 Championship. In the last level, Stu busted Jennifer Harman when his pocket jacks completed a 5-5-9-5-6 board for a boat. Patterson was maintaining his stack at about 75K with 48 players remaining of the original field of 235. The bubble is set to burst at 27 spots remaining, when each player will be guaranteed more than $22K and racing for the $535,687 grand prize and bracelet.
TWo events have come to a close this evening, crowning two new champions. Event #35, the $1.5K Seven Card Stud tournament, has come to a close with Mike Rocco taking down the final table for WSOP gold and $135,753 in earnings.
Layne Flack, meanwhile, won Event #34’s Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys contest in an aggressive race for the bracelet against heads-up opponent Daniel Makowsky. Flack takes home $577,725 in cash and some wrist candy.
Day 1 of Event #38 continued on with less than a tenth of today’s earlier field remaining; Noah Boeken, Shane “shaniac” Schleger, Matt Stout, and Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby continued to perform well as the levels marched on, despite a floor warning against Schleger for disruptive behavior in a table outcry.
“Crzysavage” Beat
by Jessica on 06.20.08, 8:16 pm
Jeff “crzysavage” Gressard (pictured at left) lost a big pot just before players in the $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em event went on break. With the blinds at 100/200, Gressard and two other players saw a flop of A
Q
4
. The big blind check to Gressard, who led out for 1150. The player to his left called and the big blind folded. Gressard bet 2500 when the T came on the turn and he was re-raised all in for 1500 more. Jeff made the call, showing A
K but had run into a set of queens and was drawing to one of the four jacks in the deck. The river brought a useless K and Gressard lost a pot worth more than 10K, dropping him to under 4K.
With 243 players still alive and the average stack at 10K, here’s a look at some of the notable chip counts in Event #38:
Ben “bfineman” Fineman - 13K
Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista - 10K
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout - 9K
Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski - 8K
Scott “mindwise” Pendergrast - 8K
Andy “BKiCE” Seth - 7K
Peter “Nordberg” Feldman - 6K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 5.5K
Shane “shaniac” Schleger - 5.5K
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 5K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 3.5K
Eugene Todd - 3K
Senovio “DorsalFin” Ramirez has been on a downswing in Day 2 of the $10K Omaha Hi/Lo event. He told Pocket Fives he continues to flop big draws that just don’t get there. One such example came when Chris “SKOAL” Falconer raised in middle position and Senovio defended from the big blind. The flop came Q53 and Ramirez checked. Falconer bet and Ramirez called. When an 8 came on the turn, Ramirex check called again. After the river of Q peeled off , both players checked and Falconer turned over A-2-4-8 for a pair of eights and the nut low which was good enough for the scoop against Ramirez’s A-4-5-6.
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham recently got it all-in in the $10K Omaha with A433 in a multi-player pot. With the board reading T623, everyone else folded to a player’s bet on the turn and he showed down T752 for two pair and a flush draw against Graham’s set of threes and a low. It looked as though Matt was going to scoop the pot until the A came on the river, giving the other player the better low and causing them to split the pot. Graham now has 9K and still has some work to do to get back to an average sized stack.
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki (pictured at right) came into Day 2 of the $1.5K NLHE event with 99k but after, “not winning a single hand all day”, he found himself with nearly half the stack he started with. When a player raised on the button, Klodnicki decided to put it all-in with his A-Q from the small blind only to learn he was in bad shape up against his opponent’s pocket queens. The board was no help to Chris and he was left with only 1,200 chips after doubling the other player up. He was subsequently eliminated a few hands later, earning $5,344 for his finish.
Here are some unofficial chip counts of some of the remaining 86 players:
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 200K
Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaughbaugh - 151K
Brian “bparis” Paris - 150K
Jose “papadelpoker” De La Guardia - 105K
Bryan Micon - 75K
Isaac Haxton - 52K
Tom “titantom32″ Braband - 50K
At the final table of the $1.5K PLO w/ rebuys, Tim “tmay420″ West was just eliminated in 8th place earning $72,213. Kyle Kloeckner has lost some pots and now sits in 5th place.
TGIF
by Jessica on 06.20.08, 3:02 pm
The official chips counts for Day 2 of the $1.5K No Limit Hold Em event were released and it looks like we have a busy day of watching players ahead of us. Pocket Fivers with top 20 chip counts include chip leader Owen “ocrowe” Crowe (170K), Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodniki (99K), Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaughbaugh (92.7K), and Dag Martin “dmmikkel” Mikkelsen (87.4K, pictured left) with Daniel “Voff” Deveau (73K), Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (72.5K), and Tom “titantom32″ Braband (70.8K) not far behind. Play will resume today at 2pm.
The final table of the $1.5K PLO w/ rebuys also gets underway at 2pm with Kyle Kloeckner coming in as the chip leader and Tim “tmay420″ West entering as the short stack.
Today will also see the start of the $2K PL Hold Em event starting at 12pm. Some of the players we spotted walking around before the event include Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Blair “blur5f6″ Hinkle and Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal.
Good luck to everyone playing!
Omaha Field Shrinks
by Jill on 06.20.08, 2:43 am
The $10K Omaha Hi-Low World Championship event marched on as 198 players remained of the original field of 235. Recent eliminations include Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, Thayer Rasmussen, and Jordan Morgan. When the board read J932, Fricke went all in on the turn and was called. He showed down QT98 for the straight draw, but his opponent held AQJ3 for two pair. When the J came on the river, his opponent made a boat and eliminated Fricke from the bracelet running.
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements thought he was in good position to build his short stack back up to his starting 20K when he bet out on an AQ4 flop with AK in the hole. He got two callers and bet again when the K came on the turn only to be raised by the player acting after him. Both the third player and Clements made the call, but Clements was left with only 200 chips. Everyone checked when a 9 came on the river and Scott showed down his two pair. The player who raised the turn revealed KK-4-X for a turned set. Scott was left with 1/4 of a big blind, but has been slowly rebuilding by splitting multi-way pots and has worked his way back up to 2K.
BigRiskky will have to make a move soon to continue the running for yet another final table this WSOP. Meanwhile, Brock “t_soprano” Parker and James “mig.com” Mackey both continued to play in the safe zone with 15K; Matt “mattg1983″ Graham picked up a pot going into break and has 26K; Stu “thedonator” Patterson held his own 20K stack next to Phil Ivey. Brett “Gank” Jungblut was sporting a 29K stack and spending much of the last level in wit-for-wit conversation with Annie Duke. Admittedly, it seemed like she was having a hard time taking him seriously while he wore a plastic WSOP souvenir cowboy hat.
Event #32’s $1.5K No-Limit Hold’em tournament came to a close this evening and Luis Velador took home his first WSOP bracelet and $573,734. The Californian entered his first final table as chip leader and managed to close the deal; congratulations to Velador on his win in this big field of over 2,300 players!
Meanwhile, in Event #34, the $1.5K Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys tournament has nearly reached the final table. Kyle Kloeckner still maintained a huge stack with more than 700K in chips. However, Tim “tmay420″ West took a hit from Layne Flack and was down to 160K, the next-to-shortest stack left. All players are guaranteed $36,109 and are battling down to the final 9 this evening in preparation for tomorrow’s final table.
The early chip leader of today’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, Craig “MrCasino” Gray, has just been eliminated. With the blinds at 500/1K, a player under-the-gun raised to 3K and it folded around to Gray on the button, who called. The flop brought JJ4 and Gray called a bet of 5K. The K fell on the turn and the under-the-gun player moved all in, putting Gray all in for his last 12K. Gray thought for close to four minutes before calling with 54, which needed help against AA. The river bricked and Gray quickly exited the event shy of his fifth cash of the World Series.
Two-hundred twenty-three players still remain, including P5ers Owen “ocrowe” Crowe (chip leader with over 130K), Dan “voff” Deveau (75k), Phil “USCPhildo” Collins (70K), Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (60K) and Bryan Micon (60K).
Tusk Love for the Wahlroos
by Jill on 06.20.08, 12:01 am
Event #34 was down to 25 players when PocketFives caught up with the play in the Brasilia room after the dinner break. With the blinds at 4K/8K and the average stack at 192K, Jeff “yellowsub” Williams was looking for a spot to get his chips in since he guarded only a 72K stack. Players returned with full bellies recently, so the general mood at the tables was upbeat and Tim “tmay420″ West (pictured at right) was chumming it up at his table. West was faring better than Williams, looking extremely comfortable with his stack of 395K after a big double-up.
As PocketFives watched, West collected a few uncontested pots in position until he tangled in a pot with Thomas Wahlroos. West moved all in preflop and held K-K-T-6 to Wahlroos’ 9-8-7-6; the flop gave both players trip sixes, but West’s better kicker won him the pot and doubled him up.
The real sleeper of the $1.5K Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys event is chip leader Kyle Kloeckner, who has been playing solid deep-stacked Omaha, increasing his stack to 460K. P5s will continue to cover these players as they move deeper into the money; all players are guaranteed $19,257 with the next money jump at 18th place.
Annie Duke, working with a short stack at the $5,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low event, has just met her demise in fifth place. Duke got all of her chips in with (TT)5 against the (KK)J of Chris Ferguson. Duke’s hand failed to improve and she sent her chips over to Ferguson before picking up $73,602. Jesus is now three-handed with a massive chip lead over Bob Lauria and Sebastian Ruthenberg.
The $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event has just returned from break and Craig “MrCasino” Gray is still one of the chip leaders with 50K. Tom “titantom32″ Braband made a surge in the past level, increasing his stack to 43K. Shannon Shorr (27K) and Bryan Micon (25K) are also working with plenty of chips as the blind levels have moved to 300/600 and the average stack is close to 16K.