Poker From The Rail
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Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Uncategorized
Please note: Caption Contest #3 has ended. We will have another one soon!
Congratulations to our winners, and thanks to everyone for participating!
Everyone who submitted a caption will be registered in a $100 freeroll at 3pm ET Saturday, July 3. If you don’t intend to play in the freeroll, please say so — we’d like to cut down on the deadstacks if possible. The freeroll will be created Thursday and I will post the tournament ID here, though you’ll be able to find it by searching for (Ctrl+F) your player ID. If you aren’t registered by Thursday, email me at davefromtherail@gmail.com. Please make sure to include your comment number and your FTP ID in the email.
Winners will be paid their 500 FTP points within 48 hours (of Wednesday 12:01 am). If you haven’t been paid by then, please let me know: davefromtherail@gmail.com
Tags: caption contest, Eli Elezra, Mike Matusow, Phil Ivey
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
I feel like I have a poker hangover. It may have something to do with being back here less than a half dozen hours after I did the parking lot stroll with the sun high in the sky. It didn’t make any sense to wait until this morning to write about Phil Ivey winning his 8th WSOP bracelet so I sat in the press box with WSOP reporter BJ Nemeth until we began discussing breakfast option. But just because I running on little sleep doesn’t mean the WSOP is going to slow down. Not a crazy one but Day 26 will keep me hoping with one final table, second round of the NLH shootout, Day 2 of the Razz tournament, and a $1,500 four card bingo game (Pot Limit Omaha/8).
The only bracelet awarded today will be in the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em tournament which just barely made it into the money on Day 2 and will bring 26 players looking to capture the title. In fact they only lost one player, Mike Matusow, between bursting the money bubble and end of day. Vitaly Lunkin is the best hope remaining for a Full Tilt bracelet while Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler begins his day sitting one off the Dank Position. They will restart at 3pm and not stop until someone is getting their picture taken with a bracelet.
Yesterday was the first round of the $1,500 NLH Shootout making for a strange day in the Pavilion Room. Unlike your standard MTT, the shootout format is simply a big room full of single table tournaments. Win your 10-handed tournament and you are in the money moving onto the next round, lose and you are standing in yet another WSOP registration line. That means the tournament staff is not breaking tables to compact the field as players are sent to the rail. By mid-afternoon the Pavilion Room tournament area looked like a ghost town with many table playing 2 or 3 handed.
140 players won their individual tables and will return today in an attempt to repeat the feat and move onto the final 14 tomorrow. We have an interesting set of players who dodged 9 bullets to get this far including Full Tilt’s Annette Obrestad dispatching her table quickly. Other notables moving on today are Adam Schoenfeld, JC Tran, Michael Binger, Isabelle Mercier, Tony “Bond18″ Dunst, Steven “UFMan2″ Burkholder, Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade, and Adam “Roothlus” Levy. They return to their tables at 3pm and just need to outlast 9 other grinders.
Day 2 of the $2,500 Razz tournament should be just as fun to watch as the first. Nothing says “miserable” more than 40 odd tables of players trying to make the worst hand. Mumbling and grumbling under their breath the entire time, the swings in this tournament were insane. Just tracking a few players throughout the day nothing was staying the same. Acting a nit doesn’t work in this game. The tournament had a considerable increase from last year’s participation with 365 masochist souls putting their hard earned money to get repeatedly punched in the stomach. 136 of those return today including Tilters David Chiu, Jennifer Harman, Matt Hawrilenko, Lacey Jones, Huck Seed, Eli Elezra, Howard Lederer, “Miami John” Cernuto, and Jose Luis Velador. Shannon Shorr comes in with the chip lead but puts that and this tournament in perspective this morning.
“Pokernews lists me as chipleader of razz with 90k. For all intents and purposes, I have 11k.” – @ShannonShorr
$2,500 Razz top ten chip counts:
1 – Shannon Shorr – 90,900
2 – Scott Packer – 76,500
3 – Thomas Tiller – 53,900
4 – Eric Conti – 50,100
5 – David Chiu – 49,100
6 – Steven Diano – 48,500
7 – Hasan Habib – 48,300
8 – Stuart Rutter – 42,000
9 – Rich Morrella – 41,000
10 – Bryan Micon – 40,600
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Phil Ivey, WSOP
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
If you want a proper treatment of Phil Ivey’s WSOP win tonight over Bill Chen — coming in Event #37: $3,000 HORSE — read Al’s Bracelet #8 for Phil Ivey.
If you’ve read Al’s report, and a bunch of others, and still want more on Ivey’s win, here are a few random notes from Ivey’s rail.
Tags: Phil Ivey
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Phil Ivey captures his 8th WSOP bracelet in 2010 World Series of Poker Event #37
Two weeks ago we found ourselves with the most exciting final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker when Tom “durrrr” Dwan was going for his first career bracelet. Tonight the atmosphere was completely different but the poker world witnessed history as Phil Ivey overcame a big chip deficit to defeat Bill Chen in the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event and collect his 8th career WSOP bracelet.
25 players returned this afternoon, each with a shot at winning the bracelet. Several took their turns on top of the leaderboard but Ivey was always in the mix as grinder after grinder was sent to the rail. When the field was narrowed to the last 18 players he was near the bottom of the counts and would inch further up until he came to the final table sitting third in chips. It was a solid final table which also featured John Juanda, Jeff Lisandro, Bill Chen, Chad Brown, and Dave Baker.
Unlike Dwan’s final table, these players were not playing on the main ESPN stage with an endless stream of spectators, fans, and multi-millionaire railbirds checking for updates. Instead they played in front of the pressbox with limited access around the rail and fan participation was not close by comparison. Instead we watched as 8 players progressed through the different games of H.O.R.S.E. with the audience unable to see the stud game action on the overhead monitor or much in the way of commentary you would expect in this circumstance. There were some big names to make their appearance throughout the evening/morning including Chris Ferguson, Matt Hawrilenko, and Andy Bloch who kept the twitter world abreast of the action.
One player after another would run into the card catching buzzsaw that was Bill Chen for most of the evening. He was hitting and scooping and pushing people around until we eventually found ourselves looking at a very interesting three handed table. Full Tilt’s Phil Ivey and John Juanda playing the bread in a Bill Chen meat sandwich, 13 WSOP bracelets between them and Chen holding more than 50% of the chips in play. After a short hiccup and some chips shuffling around between the players it would be Ivey who would eventually keep John Juanda from winning his 5th WSOP bracelet.
As heads up action began Chen was holding a big chip advantage at ~3,300,000 to Ivey’s ~1,000,000 and showing no signs of slowing down. Chen had his own vocal group of supporters sitting directly behind his seats who he would often spend the time between hands making pleasant conversation. His chatty side would go away once the rotation moved to Limit Hold’em and Ivey went on a heater of his own. Pulling in several decent sized pots until he hit a big one by flopping the second flush and Chen check-calling all the way to the river. Soon thereafter Ivey scooped a major Omaha/8 pot, good enough to vault him into a lead which he extended with practically every O8 hand that round.
There were a few moments where Chen tried to crawl back into the match but the swings were never major enough for him to establish a dominant chip position. As with all poker torture it would all end in a Razz hand. Chen was showing a deuce versus the ace of Ivey and we were pretty confident the fireworks were about to go off. Within no time the chips were in the middle on 5th street, Chen at risk and holding a Razz cooler hand. He tabled a made 76 that was way behind Ivey’s made 65. No help for the math master and Phil Ivey was soon receiving the congratulations from his family and friends.
With the victory Phil Ivey now moves into a tie with Erik Seidel with 8 career WSOP bracelets and further cementing himself as one of the best to ever play the game. Only two of Ivey’s bracelets came in the same game format.
2000 – $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha
2002 – $2,500 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo
2002 – $2,000 S.H.O.E.
2002 – $1,500 7 Card Stud
2005 – $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha
2009 – $2,500 No Limit 2-7 Draw
2009 – $2,500 Omaha/8 Stud/8
2010 – $3,000 H.O.R.S.E.
We are still working out the details on what kind of bracelet prop bets Ivey has out there but shortly after the victory Howard Lederer let his feelings be known via Twitter.
We will return tomorrow (or should say later today) with some sights and sound of the entire day.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, John Juanda, Phil Ivey, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Every time I think I have a handle on the play at the 2010 WSOP they throw me for another loop. You can usually expect the big buyin limit/split pot games to go into the early morning to declare a champ, the 6-handed and Pot Limit games usually hit their number at a reasonable hour, and the Heads Up matches NEVER go over their allotted time. Yesterday’s final day of the $10,000 Heads Up Championship blew that idea right out of the water.
We should have had an idea earlier in the day when Vanessa Rousso and Ernst Schmejkal played a marathon match in the “Elite 8″ round but no one saw what was coming. Ernst Schmejkal (nicknamed too many consonants) would meet Ayaz Mahmood (nicknamed too many vowels) in the final match to determine this year’s bracelet winner beginning at 10:45pm in a best of two out of three. Following the action with huge stacks, small blinds, and incredibly timid heads up play made for some of the most uninteresting poker. Three hours into the first match and most of the media was content to follow the progress online intending to head back to the Rio once we moved onto the next match.
That never happened.
These two tip toed their way through six and a half hours of soul retching grindem’ out poker with Mahmood eventually taking the first match. They decided sanity would be the rule of the day and both players will now return later today to see if we can finally give someone the bracelet. Just to twist things around, I’m predicting a ridiculous match with the number of hands played in the single digits.
We do have some exciting things in line this afternoon with the final day of the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event as Full Tilt is well represented. John Juanda leads the field with 25 players remaining, he’s looking for his 4th final table of 2010 and his 5th bracelet overall. Also representing Tilt are Phil Ivey, David Benyamine and David Singer. Tradition and common sense tell us it will take quite awhile to determine this year’s bracelet winner but I’ve obviously been wrong these last few days. Play resumes at 3pm today.
$3,000 H.O.R.S.E. top ten chip counts:
1 – John Juanda – 393,000
2 – Dave Baker – 373,000
3 – Ryan Hughes – 354,000
4 – Daniel Makowsky – 312,000
5 – Kenneth Aldridge – 257,000
6 – Brent Wheeler – 256,000
7 – Phil Ivey – 205,000
8 – Jeff Lisandro – 193,000
9 – Mitch Schock – 189,000
10 – Alexandre Luneau – 182,000
It wouldn’t be a day at the Rio if Phil Ivey wasn’t multi-tabling the world. He found himself making another Day 2 in the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em Championship which will restart at the same time as his H.O.R.S.E. final day and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he entered today’s $1,500 NLH Shootout tournament. 122 players return for the PLH Championship with Mike Matusow, Andy Bloch, Shaun “f’n” Deebs, Vitaly Lunkin, Erica Schoenberg, Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichentenberg, and Toto Leonidas all in the middle of the pack. Tom Marchese is out in front.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Eli Elezra, John Juanda, Phil Ivey, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
I’m naturally biased when it comes to watching certain players, my attention drifts to those sporting the red and white Full Tilt Poker patch. Yesterday I was kept hopping around both huge poker rooms and today we have the possibility of a long stay in the Rio. This Phil Ivey guy seems to be heating up now that we have moved into the backend of the schedule. He began yesterday sitting deep in both of the Day 2 restarts as well as registered for the $10,000 Heads Up World Championship.
His best shot at the start of the day seemed to be the $5,000 NLH 6-handed tournament where he was sitting with a top ten stack. Unfortunately he would get frisky with TPGK and get it all in versus aces. That pot would have vaulted him into the chip lead on the money bubble but instead he was free to concentrate on his other two events. It turns out he wouldn’t need much time in his first Heads Up match versus Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, he won on just the second hand of play and his second round opponent turned out to be Victor Ramdin who was also playing in the Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha tournament with Ivey. Ramdin met the same fate as Mizrachi, quick and clinical. The $2,500 Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha event was the last of the evening for Ivey who pushed his way into the final day. He begins the day sitting 9th of the final 14 with Full Tilt’s Jose-Luis Velador in the lead, Rob Hollink and David Chui also in contention.
$2,500 Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha top ten chip counts:
1 – Jose-Luis Velador – 455,000
2 – David Chui – 451,000
3 – Rob Hollink – 423,000
4 – Matt Sterling – 280,000
5 – Joshua Tieman – 277,000
6 – Victor Ramdin – 262,000
7 – Craig Gray – 248,000
8 – Kevin MacPhee – 247,000
9 – Phil Ivey – 207,000
10 – Tristan McDonald – 196,000
While Ivey couldn’t make it through to the final table in the $5,000 NLH 6-handed tournament, fellow Full Tilt pro Erick Lindgren will add to the excitement as he will try for his second career WSOP bracelet in this tournament. He comes in 2nd among the 12 returning players but anything can happen in this game. Darren “darrenelias” Elias will try to translate his online success (over $1,000,000 in career online tournament earnings) into a live tournament victory. The last man standing will collect over $667,000 for the effort.
$5,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-handed top ten chip counts:
1 – Mark Radoja – 1,493,000
2 – Erick Lindgren – 1,165,000
3 – Lucas Greenwood – 925,000
4 – Bruno Launais – 873,000
5 – Taylor McFarland – 848,000
6 – Darren “darrenelias” Elias – 841,000
7 – Paul Sheng – 712,000
8 – Anthony Roux – 668,000
9 – Jeffrey Papola – 598,000
10 – Orlando Delacruz – 300,000
The Seniors Championship drew a record field of 3,142 that filled most of the Pavilion and Amazon Rooms. 450 players return for Day 2 with Tom “DonkeyBomber” Schneider leading the pack followed by Full Tilt’s Eddy Scharf. Enough jokes were made about the tournament but it was a great day if you could manage to avoid being run over but the various carts in the hallway. Today will also bring a new $1,000 NLH tournament as well as a $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. at 5pm.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Erick Lindgren, Phil Ivey, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It was an oddly quiet week in the Rio this week with a few rare day with only one new event and some without a final table. That all changed as the week closed out when we found ourselves with 6 or 7 tournaments running at the same time. Richard Ashby became the second Full Tilt pro to win a bracelet at the 2010 WSOP and can be seen above collecting it from Tournament Director Jack Effel.
There was the always present controversy surrounding the annual Ladies Event but that didn’t stop them from coming in with a huge field. There were a few $10,000 Championship events which drew small, strong fields for the battle and big prizepool. During the Limit Hold’em Championship we had a few pros who were sweating the action during the Celtics/Lakers NBA Championship game, certainly with big money on the line. Mike Matusow is also pictured below sweating a prop bet with David Benyamine concerning the number of entrants.
After the jump you can find the rest of Heather B’s pictures from Week 3 at the 2010 World Series of Poker including a few new shots of the latest Perry Friedman “Parade of Hats”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Annette Obrestad, Bloggers on the Rail, Cyndy Violette, David Benefield, David Benyamine, Erick Lindgren, Howard Lederer, Karina Jett, Lacey Jones, Mike Matusow, Nick Schulman, Perry Friedman, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Richard Ashby, Roland de Wolfe, Svetlana Gromenkova, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Phil Ivey and Erick Lindgren sweat the Celtics/Lakers game during $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship
It was bound to catch up with us, with a relatively slow few days we saw this day on the horizon that will keep us jumping all day. Between the Pavilion and Amazon Rooms we will be tracking 7 different events including a new $1,500 NLHE tournament which already looks to have a huge field before the end of the first level. Among those 7 events we will have 3 new WSOP champions, 2 events on a restart, and 2 brand new tournaments. There will not be a dull moment between now and sometime early in the morning.
We’re sure to have another lengthy final table with another limit split-pot game. The $1,500 Stud/8 event was only able to get itself down to 23 players which will need play all the way down to a winner. With the size of the stacks I wouldn’t expect another 7am finish but it will be a race against the sun. Max Troy will begin the day with the chip lead but there are plenty of names behind that are capable of catching him like David Levi, Blair Rodman, Allen Bari, Brandon Cantu, and Full Tilt’s Karina Jett. They will return at 3pm to begin their marathon day.
Less likely to make us wait until sunrise to claim a champion will be the $2,500 NLHE 6-handed tournament with 15 players remaining and still plenty of action event late night Day 2. Team Full Tilt is situated nicely with 3 of the returning 15 participants in Erik Cajelais, Justin “Boosted J” Smith, and Eddy Scharf. The way this tournament played out I was surprised they didn’t nail the final table 6 before the end of play. The 6-handed format provided plenty of action no matter which table I was watching. They will also return at 3pm to start their final run.
$2,500 NLHE 6-handed top ten stacks:
1 – Steve Cowley – 1,279,000
2 – Martins Adeniya – 823,000
3 – Jeffrey Papola – 797,000
4 – Bill Haydon – 776,000
5 – Joe Baldwin – 707,000
6 – Justing “Boosted J” Smith – 641,000
7 – Jarred Solomon – 542,000
8 – Javier Etayo – 505,000
9 – Erik Cajelais – 345,000
10 – Andrey Danilyuk – 335,000
The $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha Day 1 did not disappoint as only 102 of the original 596 starting players will return for Day 2. They are just 48 eliminations from the money and my bold prediction for the day is they will reach at least 18 players by end of day if not the final table. Loren Klein comes in as the chip leader but Full Tilt’s Richard Ashby is sitting just behind looking for his second bracelet of the 2010 WSOP and help solidify this as the “Year of the Brits“.
The $10,000 Limit Hold’em World Championship played out on the other end of the spectrum. 107 of the starting 171 return owing it to the incredibly deep stacks, limit structures, and a inherent better skill involved in these $10,000 tournaments. The returning field is stacked top to bottom with outstanding players not the least is Russian Vladimir Shchemelev who has final tabled every 5-digit buyin events. 2009 Player of the Year Jeff Lisandro leads the pack but that can change quickly, for full chip counts to begin the day you can hit the official WSOP site.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Erick Lindgren, Erik Cajelais, Karina Jett, Phil Ivey, WSOP
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner, WSOP
Congratulations to our caption contest winners! There were a lot of good submissions; it was tough to pick just one for each.
Stay tuned for another caption contest this week…
Photo A:
While the dealer is looking away, Schoenberg uses her secret Jedi-Forces to switch cards.
– H311f14m3
Photo B:
“Hey Phil, go ahead and bust out so we can hit the Waffle House.”
– rgreen5150
Photo C:
Andy Bloch plays a peaceful game of Scrabble, most likely for a $100k prop bet.
– Ezyrider77
Tags: Andy Bloch, caption contest, Erica Schoenberg, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey
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
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The opinions expressed by this blog and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt Poker is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the author of this blog nor any content contained herein.
