Poker From The Rail
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Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It was a big day for Heads Up poker yesterday with the $25,000 Heads Up Championship playing down their final four and the Main Event grudge matches played out on the nifty new ESPN stage. Two Tilters have a chance to collect the first bracelet of the summer and there is still one epic Grudge Match to run.
Just one round was played in the HU Championship but the matches produced a final four worthy of the main stage. Eric Froehlich wasn’t even sure he was going to play in this event up until the registration as he was trying to sell off some of his action. Those who took a shot on “EFro” are certainly happy now. He will take on monster Ukranian Yevgeniy Timoshenko with a chance to make the finals.
Gus Hansen’s match was much smoother than his previous versus Tom Dwan. He never had to reach towards his 2 “rebuy” chips before dispatching Matt Marafioti. Hansen will battle it out with Jake Cody and try to back up his WSOP-E Heads Up title.
Gus Hansen versus Jake Cody
Eric Froehlich versus Yevgeniy Timoshenko
The second tournament to award a bracelet today will be the $1,500 Limit Omaha/8 Event #3. As we can expect to see throughout the summer, this tournament did not make it down to the final table and they’ll have to play from 25 to a winner (unless it goes over 10 levels, then back tomorrow). Francesco Barbaro is the front runner but Matt Waxman is right on his heels. Scott Clements loves his Omaha tournaments is still alive but will begin the day with just over 4 big bets. The winner will take home $262,283 and a shiny gold bracelet.
1 – Francesco Barbaro – 459,000
2 – Matt Waxman – 458,000
3 – Vladir Shchemelev – 335,000
4 – Bradley Helm – 308,000
5 – Jimmy Fricke – 278,000
6 – Dan Smith – 235,000
7 – Kostas Kalathakis – 209,000
8 – Michael Deveronica – 200,000
9 – Ricard Monroe – 184,000
10 – Travis Pearson – 175,000
Other notables: Humberto Brenes (160,000), Scott Clements (84,000), Lex Velduis (27,000)
Two other events will bring players back for their Day 2 including the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament which drew another stellar field. 243 of the starting 865 players return and will make the money later today. 81 spots are paid with 1st place picking up a cool $874,116. The 2009 bracelet winner in this event, Brian Lemke, comes into the day sitting near the top of the leaderboard.
1 – Gavin Cochrane – 175,500
2 – Victor Ramdin – 174,700
3 – Brian Lemke – 171,900
4 – Gregory Dyer – 138,800
5 – David “Doc” Sands – 138,100
6 – Jordan Morgan – 136,900
7 – Matthew Braund – 135,600
8 – Jamie Rosen – 133,900
9 – Ashley Mason – 132,600
10 – Joe Tehan – 129,900
Other notables: Brandon Cantu (129,500), Shane Schleger (112,700), Darren Elias (112,700), Erick Lindgren (102,200), Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier (93,700), JC Tran (81,100), Jonathan Little (80,600), Gavin Griffin (75,300), Matt Glantz (75,000)
Two new events also begin today with one small-ish and one big. The noon tournament is the grinders special, Limit Hold’em for $1,5000 and a small piece of their sanity. Matt Matros is the defending champion. 5pm brings the next $10,000 tournament with the Pot Limit Hold’em Championship. This event drew 268 players last year so we can expect a similar field this time around.
Remember to keep an eye out on our @FullTiltPoker twitter and Facebook page for updates during the day. The Fantasy WSOP contest is also up and running for non-US players, get in the game and challenge your favorite pros.
My favorite picture and t-shirt of the WSOP so far
Tags: 2011 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Allen Cunningham, Bloggers on the Rail, Eric Froehlich, Gus Hansen, Scott Clements, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
We are inching ever closer to crowning the first WSOP bracelet winner of the summer in the $25,000 Heads Up Championship. 32 players returned yesterday needing to win one more match to make the money and advance closer to a title. Gus Hansen entered the room late, but with a flourish. The Dane cruised into the Amazon Room with his shirt completely unzipped as he sat for his match with Daniel Alaei. If this had been Patrik Antonius we might have seen some of the female railbirds pass out, as it was he just zipped up and took care of Alaei to move on.
Hansen also provided the match of the tournament in the round of 16 when he took on Team Full Tilt member Tom “durrrr” Dwan. While the others moved along quickly, Dwan and Hansen took turns taking huge chunks out of the other until the blinds forced Hansen to shove his severe short stack in the middle several straight times. He pulled off every showdown and eventually eliminated Dwan in the final match of the night.
They will play just one match today and determine the final four. The next round kicks off at 3pm PT in the Amazon Room.
Matt Marafioto vs Gus Hansen
Jake Cody vs Anthony Guetti
David Paredes vs Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Nikolay Evdakov vs Eric Froehlich
Yesterday was also the first day for the $1,500 Limit Omaha/8 tournament which was an interesting indicator of the rest of the summer. There was plenty of speculation ahead of the WSOP about field sizes and they blew the doors off yesterday. According the WSOP staff, the 925 entrants in Event #3 made it the biggest LO8 tournament ever run. A fine start to the summer.
Defending champion Michael Chow will not go back-to-back as he was eliminated late on Day 1. 201 players remain with the top 90 getting paid. Below are the top 10 and notable stacks to kick off Day 2 at 2:30pm with blinds at 500/1,000 (1,000/2,000 limits).
1 – Guillaume Rivet – 71,200
2 – Andy Seth – 61,700
3 – Gary Bolden – 60,700
4 – Richard Monroe – 59,000
5 – Cary Falk – 59,800
6 – James Dempsey – 59,800
7 – Francesco Barbaro – 58,800
8 – Sorel Mizzi – 56,400
9 – Ted Woolridge – 55,300
10 – Kostas Kalathakis – 50,600
Other Notables: Jimmy Fricke (47,600), Barry Greenstein (46,900), Matt Waxman (39,900), Bryan Micon (38,400), Humberto Brenes (36,100), Jean-Robert Bellande (34,700), John D’Agostino (34,400), TJ Cloutier (34,300), Scott Clements (30,600), Thayer Rasmussen (28,500), Josh Arieh (28,400)
The glamour part of the day involves the made-for-TV Grudge Matches playing out on the fancy new ESPN feature table. They will replay three classic Heads Up matches from previous Main Events in front of the cameras. Matches filmed today will be Chris Moneymaker vs Sammy Farha (2003), Johnny Chan vs Phil Hellmuth (1989) then the Rounders favorite and fan choice of the classic Johnny Chan vs Erik Seidel from the 1988 Main Event final table.
Two other new events also run today with the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em off at noon and the field of rocks in a $1,500 Seven Card Stud at 5pm. Both are showing an early trend at record sizes.
Remember to keep an eye out on our @FullTiltPoker twitter and Facebook page for updates during the day. The Fantasy WSOP contest is also up and running for non-US players, get in the game and challenge your favorite pros.
Tags: 2011 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Eric Froehlich, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The big story during week 2 of the 2010 World Series of Poker was obviously the run by Tom “durrrr” Dwan attempting to win his 1st bracelet, the accompanying cash, and a boatload of prop bet money with the poker cream of the crop. Play began on Day 2 of Event #11 and Dwan was sitting with a great chance to make history for various reason. But the online multi-table master would not settle for just playing this once event.
Before he restart he was also involved in the Deuce to Seven tournament at the same time in the Amazon Room. During breaks in the NLHE action he would go sprinting across the empty spaces to play as many as he could fit in. He would eventually bust after shoving a few hands in a row giving time to concentrate on his bracelet run.
Still that wasn’t enough for Dwan. He then bought into the $10,000 Stud/8 World Championship which he spent an hour playing during the dinner break for Event #11. As we all know, Dwan would go on to finish second in his first serious bracelet run at an electric final table. The picture on the right is Dwan’s seat slip and chips awaiting his return to the Deuce to Seven tournament. The picture on the left is his Event #11 stack waiting for his return.
After the jump you can find more pictures from Week 2 including more pictures of the various headgear of Perry Friedman, Ivey’s shiny new jacket, and chip tricks.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Amanda Baker, Annette Obrestad, Bloggers on the Rail, Eric Froehlich, Erik Cajelais, John Phan, Lizzy Harrison, Perry Friedman, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Roland de Wolfe, Roy Winston, Svetlana Gromenkova, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The name “Big Money Sunday” did not seem to completely describe everything that went down in the world of online poker. It seemed every available was open to the online MTT grinder across the board including the last day of Full Tilt’s $25 Million Double Guarantees Week. Sunday on FTP is always packed with some of the best guarantee events online and yesterday they were all doubled drawing enormous fields. The premier event was the $1.5 Million Guarantee which was playing for the regular $200+ buyin. Over 7,500 players bought/won/begged their way into the field and it did not disappoint.
After nearly 12 hours, the big game finally found a champion in BankofSweden after a final table which lacked the usual flare of big name online pros. After many attempts at researching BankofSweden it seems that his biggest and only previous cash for $108 in a 45-man SnG earlier in January but now has over $200,000 sitting in his FTP account. In fact, the only player I could find who hasn’t completely blown their ROI percentage out of the water was our 7th place finisher nowa1 who actually score more for his 3rd place finish in the $300,000 last evening. There are quite a few small ball players who slept well after blowing out their bankroll to new levels.
The other massive tournaments did see quite a few big names make deep runs through field including Full Tilt Pro Eric “EFro” Froehlich how lost a heads up battle in the $400,000 Rebuy after a long battle and a 22nd place finish in the $1.5 Million. Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert final tabled the Sunday Mulligan and 33rd in the Sunday Brawl and fan favorite Christina “lindleyloo” Lindley has a few pro railbirds as she went on to capture the $300,000 Guarantee. The $400,000 and Sunday Mulligan final tables once again generated the most pro heavy action. Frank “Frank1The1Tank” Calo and Matt “NoBadBeatsPlz” Kay joined EFro at the $400,000 final table and the Sunday Mulligan featured Steven “UFman2″ Burkholder, Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert, and Dean “MSUsFinest” Hamrick. All of which busted in 7th through 9th.
I will return tomorrow with my January update, until then you can check out all the Big Money Sunday final table results after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Eric Froehlich
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
I often make tongue-in-cheek snide remarks about the fields in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em events but sometimes the jokes just kind of happen. Sitting high upon my perch in media row getting ready to kick off Event #34, I noticed there was something different with the tournament information board. Throughout the tournament you can get such useful information as number of entrants followed by the players remaining. The quick picture above made it seem that nearly 300+ plus players were eliminated before the start of Level 1. That would certainly beat the record of 5 bustouts per minute in the “Stimulus Special”.
Joking aside, there are some serious events in the room today. Luckily there is only one new event on Day 21 but we will see three bracelets awarded today as well as two restarts.
Fans of Team Full Tilt will want to monitor action at the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha table. Hendon Mobster Ross Boatman comes in with the top chipstack and John Juanda makes his third trip into the final nine. This tournament always seems dominated by the Europeans and we have four at the final table. Two from the UK, one from Denmark, and one from France.
The $1,500 HORSE was only able to get down to 23 players when play was suspended at 3am. Many big names still around but I’ll be pulling for fellow poker blogger LJ as she tries to join her friend sprstoner as blogger final tablist. Several Full Tilt pros made it deep into the night but were unable to make Day 3 including Richard “Quiet Lion” Brodie, Andy Black and David Singer. Tournament reporters will earn their day off by the end of play.
116 of the starting 185 players in the $10,000 Limit Hold’em World Championship return for their Day 2. Another small but stacked field has Tilter Jennifer Harman holding the chip lead. Also sitting near the top are Maria Ho, Josh Arieh, Shaun Deeb, Vitaly Lunkin, and Matt Hawrilenko. This tournament will be a test of those hardcore limit grinders with a structure giving plenty of play.
My dedicated blogger time will be spent railing the PLO final table, $10,000 Limit, and writing up a post answering reader mail. As always, if you have a questions you can send me a message via comments or email at AlCantHang@aol.com.
Chip counts for the restarts after the jump:
Eric “EFro” Froehlich playing in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em event
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Eric Froehlich, WSOP
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Over the past couple of years, Jared Hamby’s made quite a name for himself. While he started off as an online player, he’s clearly demonstrated that he’s got what it takes to compete on the live tournament circuit as well. Jared’s made respectable showings that include two WSOP and four WPT cash finishes. So far, he’s amassed well over $1.3 million in career tournament earnings, and it looks like he’s just getting started.
Between going to and from the casinos and taking down online tournaments, Jared was good enough to answer a few questions for us. Here’s what he had to say:
Tags: Eric Froehlich, Jared Hamby
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