Poker From The Rail
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Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The Amazon Room is going to be dead today but there will be plenty of action in the Pavilion Room as the WSOP unveils a new tournament on the schedule. With a $25,000 buyin, the 6-handed No Limit Hold’em Event #52 is the highest priced tournament outside the Players Championship. We’re unsure how many players will show up for the tournament but many pros sound like they scheduled their last few days to make sure they didn’t miss this event. As I’m writing this the tournament board is showing 171 players entered by the end of Level 1 and there isn’t a soft table in the field. It will be interesting to see how much of the normal 6-handed gamble we’ll see with the big ticket price but I suspect there will still be a healthy number of early bustouts. Walking the field I’ve already seen a few people hitting the rail even with the 75,000 in starting chips.
The powers at the WSOP have also made an accommodation for the players today. Normally the Day 2 restarts are moved to the Amazon Room but today they have switched the $3,000 NLH Triple Chance Day 2 seat assignments into the Amazon Room to allow players to compete in both events if they still have stacks.
No sooner did I hit the publish button and the WSOP staff threw a curveball at the entire field. They decided, while the players were on their first break, that the entire $25,000 NLH 6-max tournament would be moved all at once into the Amazon Room. Players began returning to see chip bags sitting in their spots getting ready to move. There are quite a few very unhappy players. That means the $3,000 Triple Chance restart will be switched to the Amazon Room also. Fun times in the Rio today. Now the Pavilion with be the Death Valley room.
That $3,000 No Limit Hold’em event was another example of unpredictable insanity. Conventional wisdom had them playing slower than your standard $1,000 Push-n-Pray festival but they tore the field like they had an unlimited number of those “rebuy” lammers. The Triple Chance variant of this tournament had players start with 3,000 in tournament chips and two lammers for an additional 3,000 in chips each. They had the option to use them all at once or wait until each stack was depleted, either way they were automatically used no matter by the end of the 4th level. These players burned through chips like they were allergic to money, 790 players were eliminated of the starting 965. Simple math tells me they were losing players at a pace of more than one per minute across the 10 levels of the day. Sounds like a fun way to light $3,000 on fire.
There were plenty great names to survive the onslaught with Full Tilt pros David Singer, Alessio Isaia, and James Akenhead sitting on top ten chip stacks. Also coming back for Day 2 are Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Mike Gracz, Tom “POB” Franklin, Vitaly Lunkin, Neil Channing, Marlon Shirley, Vitaly Lunkin, Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, and Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier. 175 players return and they are paying 90 spots, will they get there before then end of Level 11?
$3,000 No Limit Hold’em Triple Chance top ten chip counts:
1 – Tommy Vedes – 237,100
2 – David Singer – 204,100
3 – Alessio Isaia – 182,900
4 – Gavin Griffin – 134,300
5 – Jason Helder – 130,200
6 – Ryan Welch – 126,800
7 – James Akenhead – 126,300
8 – Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers- 113,000
9 – Jason Doherty – 107,900
10 – Karga Holt – 105,600
Two WSOP bracelets will also be awarded today. Robert Mizrachi begins the final day of the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event with the chip lead and looking to match his brother Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi’s bracelet win at the beginning of the series. The PLO tournament took forever to finally burst the bubble but when it did we had Annette Obrestad, Andy Black, and Christian “charder30″ Harder adding more money to their bankroll. The latest $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament will play down from 23 to a winner also.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, David Singer, James Akenhead, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Each year before the World Series of Poker Main Event, the poker elite, pro athletes, celebrities, movies stars, and recording artists descend upon the Amazon Room to play poker in the Ante Up for Africa charity tournament. They were here to raise both money and awareness for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The tournament was hosted by poker legend Annie Duke and Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle.
Some of the celebrities making an appearance were Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Alexander, Brad Garrett, Sarah Silverman, Jennifer Tilly, and rapper Nelly. Athletes Marlon Shirley, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Mike Tyson were also battling it out. Of course all the top poker pros donated their time and money to the cause.
I’ve posted a few pictures from the day for your entertainment.
Mike Matusow and Chau Giang kid around during the tournament
Good Will Hunting co-stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck hang with Marco Traniello before the tournament began
WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack meets with Don Cheadle
More photos after the jump:
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chau Giang, Chris Ferguson, David Singer, Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Pollack, Jennifer Harman, Joe Reitman, Marco Traniello, Marlon Shirley, Mike Matusow, Phil Gordon, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Phil Ivey and David Singer head into Day3 of the 2009 WPT World Championship
The $25,000 buyin WPT World Championship is taking place this week at the Bellagio in Las Vegas with the kind of field you would expect for a premier event. The tournament started with some serious deepstacks that gave plenty of play in the early stages. Each player started with 1000 big blinds and a very slow structure.
This meant they played 2 full days (3 if you include Day 1a and 1b) and just over half the original 377 players were eliminated. Then they hit Day 3 and the field dropped an even 100 players, going from 162 to 62. Only 12 players remaining until the bubble bursts and players start making a profit on their buyin.
There are some big time Full Tilt pros still in contention and dreams of an all-FTP final table are floating around. Although I’m sure the pros hope not, they would prefer a softer table. Leading the way for Team Full Tilt are Phil Ivey and David Singer followed by Chris Ferguson, Mike Matusow and Jennifer Harman, as well as the Brothers Boatman. Barny Boatman and Ross Boatman.
The players return to the tables today looking to move up the leaderboard to position themselves to win the first place prize over $2 Million. Full chip counts for the remaining 62 after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, David Singer, Phil Ivey, WPT
Posted by One Angry Monkey | Filed under Heads Up
Most of the matches so far in the Full Tilt Poker Heads-Up Challenge have been David versus Goliath situations – not today. This time we’ve got a David versus David match-up, as 5 seed David “The only Frenchman on earth that I’m actually jealous of” Benyamine takes on 12 seed David “Not a real singer” Singer. At first glance it appears this should be an easy victory for the Frenchman, but Singer could prove to be a tough opponent. Do we have another upset brewing? Only time will tell. And me. Because I get to decide who wins and loses. So, in a way, I’m more powerful than time itself. It’s just the first in a long line of steps leading me to a god-like status. Wow, we better get this match started before my delusions of grandeur start gaining power. On to the showdown:
Tags: David Benyamine, David Singer
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