Turn of Fate
by Court on 08.25.09, 3:01 am
In no limit hold em anything can happen, and it can happen in a hurry. For Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire the first 4 levels of the day were nothing but smiles, but the fifth level - the one that could easily have not even been played had tournament officials not changed the plan - went miserably awry for Devonshire.
Bryan lost some chips on the money bubble, but as he said “even in punt formation I’m going into the money with the chip lead.” Not for long though. Not too long after the final 27 were seated Devo found himself calling the all in of Matt Marafioti. Matt had opened for 16,500 and Devo had 3-bet to 46,500. Marafioti took a long time counting his chips and staring Devo down before finally announcing he was all in for his last 168k. Devonshire called and his AQ was in a race against Matt’s pocket jacks, but the jack on the A-J-6 flop left Devo in bad shape and after no runner runner magic Devo had to send a chunk of his stack to Marafioti.
That was bad enough, but even after doubling up a few players and having to fold after putting a decent amount of chips in a few pots Devonshire was still sitting with a solid 400k chips. Then Devo and Todd Terry saw a flop of Q
94 and the two ended up with all the chips in and a pot of 800k. Both had flopped flushes, Devo with the T8 and Terry with the A7. Devo had a draw to the straight flush but the J was nowhere to be found and the player that had been dominating the tournament found himself the second player of the tournament at the payout cage, collecting the $18,285 bottom rung payout for finishing in 26th place.
Nick Schulman was the first player to bust once reaching the money, finishing in 27th place for the same $18,285 when his pocket jacks ran into the pocket aces of Kevin Schaffel. The aces held and after eliminating Schulman the November Niner found himself with a stack of over 700k. Steven Begleiter, the other November Niner left in the field, is chipped up to over 600k to finish the day. The two members of the November Nine will come into the playdown day at this WPT event in 2nd and 3rd place, trailing only chip leader Todd Terry, both in a great spot to gain valuable experience for the upcoming WSOP Main Event final table. James “mig.com” Mackey (pictured) also finished strong and with 608k will come into the day tomorrow in 4th place in the chip counts.
Carter “ckingusc” King was able to get a late day double up when he paired his T-9 with a nine on the turn against Toto Leonidas who had called Carter’s 45k all in preflop with A-8. Carter was the short stack on the money bubble and he will be among the shortest of the 24 remaining players that return tomorrow, but he is still in and chips can come as quickly as they can go. Play tomorrow begins at 3pm and will continue until the final 6 is reached.
PocketFiver Chip Counts:
James “mig.com” Mackey - 608,000
Tony “DrunkPPlaya” Gargano - 342,000
Carter “ckingusc” King - 119,000
Full Chip Counts with Seating Assigments:
| Name | Chips | Table / Seat | |
| 1 | Terry, Todd | 850,000 | Table 3 Seat 2 |
| 2 | Schaffel, Kevin | 728,000 | Table 3 Seat 1 |
| 3 | Begleiter, Steven | 617,000 | Table 3 Seat 6 |
| 4 | Mackey, James | 609,000 | Table 2 Seat 4 |
| 5 | Katchalov, Eugene | 592,000 | Table 1 Seat 5 |
| 6 | Lauria, Bob | 534,000 | Table 2 Seat 7 |
| 7 | Leonidas, Toto | 456,000 | Table 2 Seat 6 |
| 8 | Stein, Sam | 452,000 | Table 3 Seat 8 |
| 9 | Friedman, Prahlad | 451,000 | Table 1 Seat 8 |
| 10 | Marafioti, Matt | 388,000 | Table 1 Seat 7 |
| 11 | Gargano, Tony | 342,000 | Table 3 Seat 5 |
| 12 | Widdoes, Matt | 312,000 | Table 3 Seat 7 |
| 13 | Demanski, David | 300,000 | Table 2 Seat 8 |
| 14 | Krescanko, Mike | 277,000 | Table 1 Seat 3 |
| 15 | Nguyen, Thu | 277,000 | Table 2 Seat 2 |
| 16 | Veytser, Sergei | 255,000 | Table 1 Seat 2 |
| 17 | Mohajeri, Kia | 215,000 | Table 1 Seat 4 |
| 18 | Hershler, Eric | 180,000 | Table 3 Seat 4 |
| 19 | Manukyan, Vigen | 168,000 | Table 2 Seat 1 |
| 20 | Chao, Steven | 164,000 | Table 2 Seat 3 |
| 21 | King, Zachary Carter | 119,000 | Table 1 Seat 6 |
| 22 | Sciuto, Richard | 108,000 | Table 1 Seat 1 |
| 23 | Jablonski, Stan | 92,000 | Table 2 Seat 5 |
| 24 | Rho, Peter | 60,000 | Table 3 Seat 3 |
