#900 – WSOP Main Event #8 – Back From the Dinner Break

Play restarted at 9 PM. These were the chip counts on the overhead monitor:

Eric Buchman – 54.725m – Buchman has been on top of it all day, and has gotten some timely luck. He’s an extremely accomplished young tournament player so I don’t think he’s out of his element. But now he’s got the target on his back. We’ll see how good he is trying to bring it back to the barn.

Darvin Moon – 41.25m – He got off to a terrific start but just gave away a bunch of chips getting confused between being a Big Stack and being an Experienced Player. They aren’t the same and he is clearly capable of amateur mistakes (like putting himself in a position where he had to fold a 40m pot to save 6m, when he should have figured out he was going to be in that position when he made the post-flop reraise of 15m). This is where it hurts not owning a computer or playing online. I’ve screwed up like that but it’s very unlikely I’ll do it in a big tournament because I’ve done it enough in online tournaments to know to think the bet sizes and the stacks through BEFORE I start betting.

Steven Begleiter – 38.1m. He has played with some major cajones. I don’t know if he’s risen to the occasion, or he’s incredibly cool, or he’s gotten the cards at the right time. Except when he got into a hand with Ivey where he got into one of those situations on the river where he had to be thinking, “This is NOT the kind of situation to get into with Ivey,” he has been on top of his game.

Antoine Saout – 28.725m. He was very savvy, very active early. I knew when he doubled up, he was going to be tough, and he has been. But he hasn’t played very many hands.

Phil Ivey – 14.9m. So patient, so smart. Mike Matusow told me during the break that he thought Phil would chop his way up to 20-22m and then look to double-up off a big mistake by one of the less experienced big-stack players.

Joseph Cada – 10.7m. He keeps hanging in.

Jeff Shulman – 7.175m. It has not been a good day for Jeff. Like Phil Ivey, he played patiently and was waiting for his chance, taking advantage of his big-tournament experience. But then when he started making moves, he folded when opponents played back. Before the break, when Ivey was near the bottom of his stack, Jeff (who had twice as many chips at the time) raised and Ivey moved all-in. Mike told me that Shulman folded pocket nines. Certainly, Jeff could know better than me but I don’t think you give up a chance to bust Ivey when you have double his stack and have pocket nines and it’s an all-in pre-flop situation.

Just as I am posting this at 9:50 PM, Jeff Shulman moved all-in with A-K and was called by Joe Cada with A-J. Jeff’s A-K held up and now he’s doubled up and Cada is on the critical list.

The crowd here has been boisterous but generally well behaved. Except for a few of Cada’s people. A few of them have yelled nasty things at some inopportune moments, like during a hand. Dan Cypra for PocketFives.com, who is covering this for Poker News Daily, told me that, earlier, two of Cada’s supporters got into a fight – with each other. Security kicked them both out. Cada is all but out of chips.

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