Made For TV
by Court on 09.28.09, 4:42 pm
What is going on here? A poker tournament or a TV show? Or a casino maximizing profits? Well, all three. And each of the three have to bend a little to accommodate the others. With tables all over the Casino at the Empire there are plenty of logistical issue to deal with and as tables are quickly breaking players and whole tables are being moved all over the casino.
Earlier the table with Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad was moved from under the stairs to the third feature table area and then an adjacent table was moved over the where Annette’s table was to give them more space. Once the feature table came up on the break order a new table was selected to move down and take the feature spot and then a table from the upstairs area was slated to move over to take that table’s old spot while a table from the downstairs poker room was then moved to make room for the casino to open up another cash game table. Got all that? That is just the start of it, but so far so good. Things seem to be going smoothly even with all the moving and rearranging of players and tables.
The main feature table broke and sent Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar, Nadeem “Deemer6″ Riaz, Doyle Brunson and Antonio Esfandiari out into the casino to hunt down their new seats. One player had some trouble and Jack Effel was heard over the loud speaker calling for the player who had drawn the table 10 seat 7 card and saying he hoped the player had not taken his chips into the bathroom. Not hunting a new seat is Phil Hellmuth, who was busted by Antonio and sent huffing into Leicester Square.
The new cast of players at the feature table includes Jason “treysfull21″ Mercier (left), Steve Zolotow and Sandra Naujoks. Mercier and Zolotow have been among the chip leaders all day.
Another level down means another chunk of players saw their tournament come to an end. Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein had made a bit of a comeback from his measly starting stack but his AK lost a race to pocket nines and he was left to sign a copy of “Ace On The River” to give to the player that eliminated him. Shaun Deeb fell out of contention sometime early in the day and James “Andy McLeod” Obst (right) was involved in a huge 3 way pot that sent him to the rail.
On a flop of A-T-7 with two hearts there was plenty of action. Obst had AT for two pair, another player had the Q
J for a flush draw and a gutshot and Praz Bansi, who is now the chip leader with over 300k, had pocket sevens for bottom set. The turn was a nine, no help for Obst but giving the player with a flushdraw and gutshot a few more outs. The river paired the seven though, giving Bansi quads and eliminating two players. Mohsin “ChicagoCards1″ Charania was moved to Obst’s vacated seat from a nearby table to balance numbers after the double elimination.
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout had Ilari “Zigmnd” Sahamies all in, but Stout’s A
K wasn’t enough to overcome Ilari’s pocket kings and after the hand Stout had dropped to around 40k while Sahamies saw his stack rise to 50k. A few hands later pocket kings were turned faceup on the table at showdown in front of Matt, but the pot he was raking in was small and didn’t add all that much to his stack.
Players are going into the 500 / 1,000 100 ante blind level. A full rundown of the tournament structure and the payouts converted to US Dollars can be found through the Blind and Payout Structures link in the left toolbar.
