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 We Haven’t Lacked for Excitement …

… though the Dennis Phillips 300 could have done without it. That’s how big a group Phillips brought with him to the final table, and they’re looking stunned during the break.

Dennis Phillips and Ivan Demidov, the two chip leaders at the start of play, just saw their first flop together and it didn’t go well for Phillips. (By the way, Pokernews.com has hand-by-hand action at the final table. Sitting what seems like an entire time zone away, I’m not trying to compete with them, or anyone else who is trying to describe the hands.) Dennis raised and Demidov reraised. Dennis called.

The flop was 8d-Tc-Js. Waiting in line at the men’s room, the Mizrachi brothers, who are sitting tableside in the bleachers, were talking about the hand and Robert said, “Worst hand in the world is Q-Q. You can’t beat anything at that point. Can’t beat aces, kings, jacks, or tens.” He thought it was aces for Demidov and kings for Phillips.

Phillips bet out, even though Demidov had reraised and had position. He made it 4.5 million. Ivan moved all-in, making it 9.9 million more. I don’t have specific enough chip counts to know whether he had Phillips covered (see below) but it was everything or nearly everything for Dennis.

Phillips folded. Just 15 minutes earlier, almost the same thing had happened to Dennis Phillips. Ylon Schwartz, on the button, called Phillips’s raise – first flat-call in position. After a a flop of 4s-2s-7c, Dennis bet 2.35 million, which I think was a good portion of the pot. (Again, check a site like Pokernews.com for specifics, and I could conceivably be incorrect about this sort of thing. But I think Dennis’s raise was to 900k, which would have put about 2.6 million in the pot on the flop.)

Schwartz raised to 6 million and Phillips folded. That makes two big folds by Dennis Phillips, and he’s dropped a lot of chips in the process. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles this. What’ll happen the next time he gets reraised, or flat-called? He hasn’t played many hands and, despite pretty moderate preflop raises, they are playing big-pot poker here.

Note about Kelly Kim. I don’t think he’s played a hand since the first one. (Again, he might have played one more but that would have been it.) But big-pot poker is in his interest. He’ll have no trouble getting all-in if he’s got something and there’s also a chance someone else could bust and win him some extra dough. (Remember, they already got their ninth place money, so the first player eliminated spent four months waiting for this day, only to go home with nothing.)

Ivan Demidov has a big lead with 35 million chips. Peter Eastgate has 20 million and Scott Montgomery’s not that far behind with 17 million. But then it gets very, very tight, especially for big-pot poker. Chino Rheem, Darus Suharto, Ylon Schwartz, Craig Marquis, and Dennis Phillips all have between 9 and 13 million. And Kelly Kim is still hanging on with 1.8 million.

Incidentally, the big-pot poker they are playing and the redistribution of the stacks works “in favor” of television. Confections for the connoisseur would be lots of flops, small bets, deep stacks. Meat for the masses – TV – is lots of big all-in moves. And that’s what we’re seeing so far, and what I expect we will see until the first few eliminations. Demidov is the only one who can really play small pots (and maybe Peter Eastgate). If, by 5 or 6 handed, the chips get concentrated among a few other players, we’ll see more deep-stack poker.

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2 Responses to “#591 – World Series Final Table #4 – First Break: Big Pot Poker Excitement”

1. 23rd Wave Says:
   November 9th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

   Big surprise: the amateur is getting his ass handed to him.

2. Jahdgie Says:
   November 13th, 2008 at 8:50 am

   Love that it was AQ for Demidov and AK for Phillips. I wonder if Demidov pushes allin if Phillips hadn’t nervously delcared “I raise” when making his post flop lead bet…….

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