Tom Braband Needs Help
by Jessica on 06.28.09, 1:16 am
You would too if you had so many chips. While other players are just trying to survive to the end of the day, Tom “titantom32″ Braband (pictured left) has more pressing issues to deal with–namely, how to transport his ginormous 80K chip stack. To give you a means of comparison, the average stack right now is 19K and Tom has been sitting with 75K + since before dinner break when average was closer to 12K. Also keep in mind that the largest denomination chip in play right now is the yellow 1K chip, so volume-wise he has some issues too.
Braband’s table in Brasilia was relocated into the Amazon Room during Level Seven. For those who may not know, when a table moves from one room to another at the WSOP, the protocol is for players to put their chips in the same bags used at the end of the day in tournaments and then their dealer will carry all the bags to the new table. Braband’s large bag was stuffed to the brim and the tiny Asian woman dealing his table couldn’t resist giving him a hard time about it.
“I can’t carry this,” she joked as she pointed at the massive bag. Braband and his tablemates got a good laugh and proceeded to the Amazon Room. Once Tom got settled in, it took him a grand total of fifteen minutes to get all of his chips in order. It would have taken him even longer were it not for the kind player on his left, who offered to help him stack his chips because it was too big a job for just one person.
Braband’s friend, David “Doc_Sands” Sands, has had quite an up-and-down day. He told us that just before the dinner break he had a 15K stack before getting involved in a hand with Dan Shak. On a 6-4-2 flop, Sands led out for a bet with pocket eights and Shak re-raised. Sands moved all in and Shak called with A-6. Thing looked promising for David until a six hit the river, denting his stack down to 3K. Then after the break he had built it up to 9.6K before doubling up through an older gentleman at his table. With the blinds at 200/400 the man raised to 1.2K from early position and Sands moved all in for 9.6K from the button. His opponent called with A
J
, which was slightly ahead of Sands’ KQ. The K
in the door put David in front and he made trips on the turn to seal the hand and increase his stack to 20K.
Josh “SDouble” Schlein has also made his way over to the Amazon Room. When counting his chips we came up with a range between 10K and 20K. We can’t get an exact amount because he’s stacked them in 12 different piles of mixed denominations. Pretty sure he did it on purpose. Thanks Josh.
One of the few remaining players in the Brasilia Room is Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little. He may not have 80K, but he is sitting at right around average with 17K. He took a bit of a hit when he got involved in a hand that was limped 5-ways at the 200/400 ante 25 blind level. Jonathan bet out 1,200 from the big blind on the JT
9 flop and a player in middle position moved all-in for 3,925 chips total. It folded back around to Little who called and showed QT for middle pair, a flush draw, and an open-ended straight draw. His opponent turned up KQ for the flopped straight. The A on the turn and blank on the river gave the other player a Broadway straight and the pot.
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg, Ben “bfineman” Fineman, Frank “gator93″ Hernandez and Clark “snake8484″ Hamagami were among those eliminated since our last report. With 640 players remaining here are some of the P5ers still alive:
Jon “FatalError” Aguiar (pictured right) - 42K
Shaun “Cougars4444″ Hendrickson - 32K
Alex Jacob - 31K
Jason “JPOSU” Potter - 26K
Scott “dorinvandy” Dorin - 25K
Bryan Micon - 22K
Grant “drossxyu” Hinkle - 21K
Jason Gray - 20K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 16.5K
Jack “doctor_fun” Powell - 16K
Mike “SirWatts” Watson - 15K
James “mig.com” Mackey - 15K
Zach “CrazyZachary” Clark - 8.5K
Jeff “jeffboski” Sluzinski - 7.5K
