Sunday, August 06, 2006

WSOP Main Event Day 5

With 135 players left at the WSOP Championship, we're only 134 more bustouts away to finding out who won $12 million and becomes the next superstar of poker. With only a handful of named pros left in the hunt, the winner will most likely be a grinder who never heard of before or some lucky amateur who won his seat through an online satellite.

Most Americans are getting up to go to church, or heading out on a Sunday drive, or getting sucked in taking the wife to Bed, Bath and Beyond. Not here in Las Vegas. Reporters and writers are shaking off their hangovers, poker players still left in the event are awaking after another sleepless night, and the disgruntled dealers are shuffling off to another down as they count the days they have left to work like a prisoner on the verge of parole.

The big story yesterday was seeing 2005 WSOP Champion Joe Hachem fight back tears after he suffered yet another wicked bad beat at this year's WSOP. In earlier events in this WSOP, Dutch Boyd caught a two outer when he won his bracelet sending Hachem to the rail in second place, and then Gentleman John Gale hit a five out to bust Hachem from his second final table at the WSOP. Regardless of the outcome, Joe Hachem played and acted like a champion over the past year. It was fun watching him play in the biggest cash games at the Rio along with Andy Black, Johnny Chan, and Greg Raymer.

In "what the fuck? news" Rick Solomon (Shannon Doherty's ex-husband and the guy with the pencil thin penis in the Paris Hilton sex video) eventually busted out late last night. In an ironic twist of fate, he lost a race when his A-K did not improve against... Q-Q. Yes, the Hilton Sisters busted him.

Ryan K. busted out yesterday after an amazing run. My buddy Stomry entered Day 4 as the lowest stack and had a short stack for 2.5 days and still managed to go deep.

I wrote two interesting articles over at PokerStars Blog. Take a peek:
Humberto Brenes: The Shark Smells Blood
Tom McEvoy: Exit Interview with a Champion Part II
Another big story that's been missed by the official media has been the final three women left in the event. I know that Annie Duke could care less if she's the last woman standing. She wants to win it all. And she's been playing excellent poker over the past week. She survived the bright and hot lights of the featured TV table and dodged the snickers over her choice in Fidel Castro inspired clothing. She's sitting in 19th place with 919K in chips. Sabyl Cohen and Deba Lalor are also still left in the mix.

The big names still left include Annie Duke, Humberto Brenes, Allen Cunningham, Casey Kastle, Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Prahlad Friedman, Bryan Mincon, and Jeff Lisandro. Irish pro Dave "Wildy Autistic Luckbox" Murray, who's considered one of the brightest people in the room, still has chips. There are 27 PokerStars qualifiers still left.

Here are the end of Day 4 chipcounts courtesy of Poker Wire. I consider them accurate because Jen from PokerWire did them and I trust her work.
2006 WSOP Quick Stats & Links
Flipchip's 2006 WSOP Photos
PokerStars Blog

Remaining players: 135
Avg. Stack: $650K
Chipleader: Jamie Gold $3.7M
Number of Entries: 8,773
Total Prize Money: $82,512,162
Harrah's Cut: $5,217,838

Top 10 Chipcounts:
1 Jamie Gold 3,700,000
2 Max Reele 2,358,000
3 James Routos 2,279,000
4 Kyle Bowker 2,272,000
5 Michael Binger 1,889,000
6 Prahlad Friedman 1,558,000
7 Ricki Nielsen 1,388,000
8 Kevin Aaronson 1,354,000
9 WeiKai Chang 1,343,000
10 Noah Siegel 1,283,000

The Rest:
11 Brian Hansen 1,273,000
12 Luke Chung 1,271,000
13 Dmitri Nobles 1,252,000
14 John Ma 1,250,000
15 Jeffrey Lisandro 1,208,000
16 Dustin Holmes 1,176,000
17 Eric "Rizen" Lynch 1,085,000
18 Ricardo Velasco 1,050,000
19 Mark Garner 1,048,000
20 Chris Damick 1,039,000
21 Richard Gryko 994,000
22 Dan Abouaf 992,000
23 Dave Murray 991,000
partypokerad.gif24 Doug Kim 937,000
25 Lee Kort 936,000
26 Annie Duke 919,000
27 Cuong Do 914,000
28 Rick Mombourquette 911,000
29 Ken Jacobs 896,000
30 Thomas Wahlroos 884,000
31 Cheng Yu 876,000
32 Tyler Teague 860,000
32 Matt Wilson 860,000
34 Andrew Schreibman 835,000
34 Humberto Brenes 835,000
36 Tony Moretina 817,000
37 Brady Shepard 808,000
38 Fred Goldberg 791,000
39 Kevin O'Donnell 789,000
40 Lasse Ubostad 782,000
41 Clint Brotherton 760,000
42 Alan Resh 709,000
43 Chris Kealy 708,000
44 Dan Nassif 702,000
45 Alex Balandin 681,000
46 Mitch Schock 674,000
47 Erik Friberg 650,000
48 Paul Raeburn 646,000
49 Pat Dattilo 638,000
50 John Magill 636,000
51 Anthony Fagan 634,000
52 Jean Houle 629,000
53 Kevin Daly 622,000
54 Hossein Khodabanelou 620,000
55 Justin Diamond 608,000
56 Marcello Del Grosso 607,000
57 Richard Lee 606,000
58 Scott Malone 585,000
59 Rob Roseman 576,000
59 Samir Khoueis 576,000
61 Steven Goodemote 569,000
62 Siddharth Jain 567,000
63 Matthew Morgan 564,000
64 Paul Wasicka 552,000
65 Leif Force 537,000
66 Raphael Doromal 536,000
67 Brian Nadell 523,000
68 Lowell Kim 522,000
69 Dan Schmiech 515,000
70 Allen Cunningham 503,000
71 Scott O'Reilly 501,000
72 Sebastian Zavarsky 497,000
73 Daniel Kreitzman 496,000
74 John Lee 473,000
75 David Einhorn 462,000
76 Brian Kornfeld 459,000
77 Virgil Beddingfield 453,000
78 Vipul Kothari 435,000
78 Tyler Pendleton 435,000
80 Benjamin Logan 430,000
81 Chris Back 416,000
82 Rob Berryman 413,000
83 Mikael Thuritz 411,000
84 Sirious Jamshidi 408,000
84 Hakam Sahl 408,000
84 Robert Betts 408,000
87 Sabyl Cohen 398,000
88 Matt Woodward 392,000
89 Aaron Baltzell 386,000
90 Robert Taylor 375,000
91 Debra Lalor 372,000
91 Barry Goren 372,000
93 Sean Johnson 359,000
94 Theodore Park 358,000
95 Michael Bowen 353,000
96 Eric Molina 346,000
97 James Petrillo 345,000
98 Reuben Peters 344,000
99 Shyam Ravindran 336,000
100 Alan Schein 333,000
101 Anders Karlsen 329,000
102 Marc Friedmann 327,000
103 David Simon 324,000
104 Paul Greim 317,000
105 Nicolai Vivet 316,000
106 Iago Lopez 315,000
107 Rhett Butler 310,000
108 Mack Lee 287,000
109 Aki Ruuskanen 285,000
110 Per Loeff 284,000
111 Davis Huynh 280,000
112 Bryan Micon 275,000
113 Shannon Westbrook 273,000
114 Walt Shafer 266,000
115 Mark Shanta 245,000
116 Paul Coles 239,000
117 Richard Wyrick 234,000
118 Arturo Morales 222,000
119 Stefan Mattsson 219,000
120 Carlos Lopez Jr. 209,000
120 Derek Scallon 209,000
122 Paramjit Gill 203,000
123 Michael Simonsen 202,000
124 Steinan Karlsen 200,000
125 William Thorsson 168,000
126 Mark Petersen 166,000
127 Kevin Nathan 158,000
128 Cory Butler 150,000
129 Bert Gill 127,000
130 Casey Kastle 117,000
131 Eric Buchman 110,000
132 James Flick 92,000
133 Robby Robertson 75,000
134 John Kim 67,000
135 David Woo 44,000
Nazi-ish media restriction kicked in yesterday for the folks with red badges. I feel like I'm wandering around in a Warsaw ghetto circa 1940 with a gold star on my jacket. I don't expect to get any good photos or be able to follow the action close up like I did in the past week or like last year. Stop by and check out Flipchip's 2006 WSOP photos to get your picture fix.

Stay tuned for updates.

* * * * * Live Blogging Updates * * * *

12:01pm... Cards are in the air. We're on Level 21. Blinds are $6K/$12K with $2K antes.

12:15pm... Recent Eliminations: Iago Lopez Gonzalez busted two guys on the first hand. His Q-Q held up in a three-way pot against 6-6 and A-Q. 133 players remain. Bart Gilliom and Corey Butler were Iago's victims.

12:20pm... Recent Eliminations: David Woo lost a race when his 7-7 ran into Mikael Thuritz's A-Q. Ted Park is also out.

12:30pm... WSOP Photos: Due to restrictions, I had to use a zoom on some of these, as I took them from the rail. So they didn't come out like I wanted. Click on the images to see an enlarged view.


Our chipleader... Hollyweird Agent Jamie "Ari" Gold


Unbagging chips


Bryan Micon from NeverWin Poker


Allen Cunningham


Iago exhales after he busts two players

12:45pm... Recent Eliminations: 126 players are left. Arturo Morales, James Petrillo, Robert Taylor, Hakan Sahl, and Kevin Nathan all busted in the last 15 minutes. Robert Taylor's Jacks ran into Hiltons.

12:50pm... Bryan Micon won a race when his 6-6 held up against K-J. Micon is up to 500+ in chips.

12:55pm... Recent Elimiantions: Aki Ruuskanen flopped quad Queens cracking Glenn Karlsen's K-K. Also busted are Derek Scallion, Chris Back, Tyler Pendleton, Chris Back, Casey Kastle, and Brian Kornfeld. Korndfield's Kings ran into WeiKai Chang's pocket aces.
The following players won $51,129:
110 Justin Diamond
111 Tyler Teague
112 Matt Wilson
113 Mark Petersen
114 Eric Buchman
115 David Simon
116 Steinar Karlsen
117 Debra Lalor
118 Per Loeff
119 Casey Kastle
120 Kevin Daly
121 Robby Robertson
122 Derek Scallion
123 Chris Back
124 Tyler Pendleton
125 Glenn Karlsen
126 Brian Kornfeld

The following players won $47,006:
127 Arturo Morales
128 James Petrillo
129 Robert Taylor
130 Hakan Sahl
131 Kevin Nathan
132 David Woo
133 Theodore Park
134 Bart Gilliom
135 Corey Butler
1:25pm... Recent Elimination: Debra Lalor is out. Two females remain... Annie Duke and Saybl Cohen. Kevin Daly and Per Loeff busted too. Prahlad Friedman's J-J cracked Daly's Hiltons.
The following players won $51,129:
105 Brady Shepard
106 Mark Shanta
107 Mack Lee
108 Virgil Beddingfield
109 Steven Goodenmote
1:35pm... Annie Duke lost a huge chunk of her stack to Cheng Yu. On a flop of Ac-Jd-7d, Yu check-raised Duke 100K and she folded. She has around 250K.

1:38pm... Jeff Lisandro had a sraight flush draw with 5d-3d. He turned a straight which was good enough to crack Mark Shanta's aces and send him home in 106th place

1:45pm... Action is going very quick today as the short stacks make moves. Action will slow down eventually as the big stacks get bigger. For now, everyone is hoping that they can play down to 9 player by Tuesday night, giving everyone Wednesday off. ESPN would like to have the day free to do player interviews, while everyone else would welcome the day off to sleep. Me included. Jamie "Ari" Gold is around $4M.

2:00pm... Sabyl Cohen double dup with Aces against Big Slick. She almost has $1M and is the "chick" chipleader.

2:10pm... After gettng doubled through, Dimitri Nobles got his chips back when against Dave Murray. Nobles' Q-Q held up against A-10. He has almost $1M.

2:30pm... Players are back from a break. We're on Level 22. Blinds are $8K/$16K, with $2K antes.

2:55pm... Recent Eliminations: Iago is out. He had his Aces snapped off by a flush.
The following players won $51,129:
97 Davis Huynh
98 Sam Khoueis
99 Paul Coles
100 Alex Balandin
101 Iago Lopez Gonzales
102 Carlos Neira
103 Dan Abouaf
104 Walt Schafer
105 Brady Shepard
106 Mark Shanta
107 Mack Lee
108 Virgil Beddingfield
109 Steven Goodenmote
3:00pm... 96 players left according to Nolan Dalla. Lee Kort is the new chipleader with $3.3M.

3:05pm... Rizen's A-A held up against Hossein Khodabanelou's 6s-4s.

3:15pm... Recent Elimiantions: 93 players remain after Alan Schein, Matt Woodward, and Tony Moretina busted out. Woodward ran into K-K.

3:30pm... Recent Elimiantion: Annie Duke is out. Her A-3 lost to Jeff Lisandro's 8-8.

3:55pm... I had to take a quick break and cool Spaceman down. He's been having a tough work day. We went for a walk to the kitchen tent. He's a little better now, but his work tilt is about 70%. Otis is on 10% tilt. CJ is up to 95% tilt due to a migrane.

4:00pm... Recent Eliminations: Canada's Rick Mombourquette is out when his A-Q ran into A-K.
The following players won $51,129:
86 Rick Mombourquette
87 Benjamin Logan
88 Annie Duke
89 Pat Datillo
90 Mikael Simonsen
91 Thomas Wahlroos
92 Barry Goren
93 Hossein Khodabanelou
4:10pm... Rizen doubled up with Aces again. He has 600K. Humberto is down to 375K. Dimitri Nobles slipped to 800K.

4:20pm... Smoke break.

4:30pm... Recent Eliminations: Paul Greim busted when his A-Q lost to K-Q. Suckout city.
The following players won $51,129:
82 Paul Greim
83 Matthew Morgan
84 Shyam Ravindran
85 Lasse Ubostad
4:50pm... Players are back from a break. We're on Level 23. Blinds are $10K/$20K with $3K antes.

5:10pm... Rizen strikes again. He's been catching good cards today. he had aces hold up twice and took down a pot with K-K. He floped a set then turned quads. He's now up to 1M after he busted Scott Malone.

5:15pm... Recent Eliminations: 77 layers left. Dimitri Nobles is out. His K-10s lost a race to a middle pair.

5:30pm... Bouncin Round the Room: There are nine tables left. Wil and I counted how many people were inside the rail. There were almost a dozen Harrah's suits, a couple of floor people, four CardPlayer guys, two people from BluffRadio, two official photographers, and fifteen ESPN folks.

5:40pm... Recent Eliminations: 73 players left.
The following players won $65,973:
74 Aaron Baltzell
75 Daniel Kreitzman
76 Dmitri Nobles
77 Anthony Fagan
78 Paramjit Gill
79 Scott Malone
80 Jean Houle
81 Sebastian Zavarsky
5:45pm... Allen Cunningham doubled up. he won a race with K-J versus Ricki Nielsen's 7-7. Sabyl Cohen doubled up with K-Js versus Erik Friberg's Hiltons.

5:50pm... According to Otis, we're playing 5 levels tonight or until we get down to 54 players.... whichever comes first.

6:00pm... WSOP Photo Dump: This is what's been going on today.


None shall pass

6:15pm... Recent Eliminations: John Kim and Allen Resh hits the rail. Resh had Queens and ran into Aces.

6:30pm... "Rizen just hit quads again! It was a huge huge hand," Otis said as he ran into the media room. Rizen was all in preflop with A-J against A-Q. He flopped a Jack, turned a Jack, then rivered the case Jack.

6:40pm...Bouncin Round the Room: Lacey Jones was doing an interview on Bluff Radio. I spotted John Bonetti and Joe Hachem lurking around the rails. Change100 had a funny conversation with two-time bracelet winner Bill Chen, "You see those black $10,000 chips? That represents a buy-in. A donkey. I'll raise you three donkeys. I'll re-raise you six donkeys."

6:45pm... Recent Eliminations: Brian Nadell is out when his A-10 lost to K-J. He was in tears as he busted and stormed out of the room before he could get his bust-out ticket.
The following players won $90,713:
66 Clint Brotherton
67 Brian Nadell
68 Vipul Kothari
69 Alan Resh
70 James Flick
71 Chris Kealy
72 Marcello Delgrosso

The following player won $65,973:
73 John Kim
6:50pm... We're on dinner break. Play will resume at 8:30pm.
Top 10 Chipcounts:
1 Erik Friberg 4.3M
2 Jamie Gold 4.2M
3 Jeffrey Lisandro 3.4M
4 Michael Binger 3.3M
5 Eric Molina 3.2M
6 James Routos 2.46M
7 Ricki Nielsen 2.2M
7 Lee Kort 2.2M
9 Dan Schmiech 2.16M
10 John Magill 1.9M
8:35pm... Back from dinner. We're going to play down until 45 players or 5 levels, not 54 as previously suggested. There's a chance we will be playing to 1am tonight. I hope that we bust 20 players between now and Midnight.

9:00pm... Recent Eliminations: Bryan Micon is out when his Jacks were cracked on the river by Q-8s. Ken Jacobs is gone too. I had an interesting incident involving a rail bird. There's a rail that's roped off and an inner walkway/perimeter for red badges which circles the tournament floor. That's where I stood, trying to angle myself in position during Micon's all in. I was in a good spot in between the ESPN camera crew. All of a sudden, I get pushed aside by someone behind me on the rail who reached out a couple of feet and shoved me.
Pauly: "What the fuck?"
Asshole: "I can't see."
Pauly: "You touch me again and I break your nose."
If he politely asked me to step aside I would have found a better spot for everyone to see. I'm good like that. But the second you touch me, that's when you cross the line. He's lucky I didn't drink at dinner break otherwise I would have done something stupid. Instead I took the high road, gave him a verbal warning, then turned my back on the guy. I stood in his view for the rest of the hand. I wrote down the important info and moved onto another table. "Even the railbirds are frustrated with the media," Michalski admitted.

9:15pm... Recent Eliminations:
The following players won $123,699:
58 Ari Ruuskanen
59 Max Reele
60 Shannon Westbrook
61 Chris Damich
62 Ken Jacobs
63 Bryan Micon

The following players won $90,713:
64 Noah Siegel
65 Rueben Peters
9:17pm... Otis Quote of the Day: "I'm thinking about paying a hooker to cuddle with me."

9:20pm... Irish Update: The Antes Up guys got smashed at Jesse May's party. They played Jenga with Devilfish. "Awful player," Tom Murphy said. They were played another game and gambled on it. Murphy said it was an intense game lasting an hour. Those Irish guys will gamble on anything.

9:25pm... Recent Eliminations: Sabyl Cohen is out. She moved all in with K-8 and lost to Erik Friberg's J-10 when a Jack flopped. She is the longest lasting female at the 2006 WSOP. Both her, Debra Lalor, and Annie Duke played remarkable poker for over a week. Cohen survived over 99% of the field. All three ladies were eliminated on Day 5.
The following players won $123,699:
55 John Ma
56 Sabyl Cohen
57 Stefan Mattsson
9:45pm... Bouncin Round the Room: Martn de Knijff got caught coaching one of the Swedish players. Not only is that against the rules, but he was using a media badge (not in his name) to get near his player by the inner media rail. TD Jack Effel made an annoucnemnt saying that "Media and spectators are prohibited from coaching the players."

9:50pm... Recent Elimination: CC scooped CardPlayer!! Scott O'Reilly busted out by Doug Kim. O'Reilly's 5-5 lost a coinflip to A-Q.

10:00pm... Go read Michael Craig's blog.

10:15pm... Ed Molina and Jamie "Ari" Gold were jawing back and forth during a hand. At one point, Molina re-raised all in. Gold took a long time to make the call, and was soaking up camera time. "You got caught. Stop wasting time and just fold," Molina said as he threw his all-in chip at Gold. An angry Gold picked it up and threw it back at Molina. Eventually Gold folded and as Molina raked in a pot, he muttered "fuck." The delaer called the floor over and Molina got a ten minute penalty for the F-bomb. I was talking to Feldman at ESPN and he thought that Molina should have gotten a twenty minute penalty.

10:16pm... Bouncin Round the Room: "Jamie Gold has no class," one British writer said. "And he's an awful player." Gold is buddies with Johnny Chan who's been coaching him.

10:20pm... Recent Elimination: Richard Velasco is out.
The following players won $164,932:
50 Richard Gryko 164,932
51 Nicolai Vivet $164,932
52 Michael Bower $164,932
53 Richard Velasco $164,932
54 Scott O'Reill $164,932
10:35pm... 49 players are left. There's a 30 minute break as they race off the $1K chips and color up. We'll play one more level or until we get down to 45 players.

10:45pm... Bouncin Round the Media Room: The Irish guys are reading aloud some of the comments in their forum about CardPlayer's coverage. Howard read out an exceprt from the GutShot forums in England. And the Swedes are translating what their readers are saying about the lackluster coverage. The Europeans are not pleased that their top players have been snubbed.

10:50pm... European Players Update: The Irish are doing good. Tom McGill has $2M while Dave Murray has $800K. Erik Friberg from Sweden is close to the chiplead with Jamie "Ari" Gold. Mikael Thuritz from Stockholm, Sweden is about 30th in chips with $1.1M. He took 26th at the WPT Championship.

10:58pm... We're on Level 25. Blinds are $15K/$30K with $5K ante. Jamie GOld is the chipleader wit $7.2M.

11:00pm... Recent Eliminations: Cheng Yu busted. Irishman Dave Murray busted when his 2-2 lost to 10-10.

11:11pm... WSOP Pic Dump: Click on the photos to see an enlarged view.


Chips


Barry signs autographs


Johnny Chan on the rail with Tom Murphy(right)


William Thorsson's stack


11:25pm... Recent Eliminations: Raphael Doromal is out.
The following players won $164,932:
46 Sean Johnson
47 Raphael Doromal
48 Dave Murray
49 Cheng Yu
11:30pm... Play is over for the night and will resume at Noon on Monday. 45 players remain. Humberto Brenes and Allen Cunningham survived and will return for Day 6.

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