Monday, June 18, 2007

WSOP Day 17: Hellmuth's 60th Cash and Eskimo Clark Lives

By Pauly

This might be a quickie post. Short on time.

I've been assigned Day 2 restarts which is a lot of work spread out over 12-15 hour days. They begin at 2pm and do not end until nine players are left. I feel like Mo Rivera on the Yankees in the 1990s when he was the set up man for John Wetteland and Mo would pitch two innings before handing the ball over to the closer (and in our case that happens to be whoever is doing the final table that day which is usually BJ).

In the NL events, the money bubble usually burst before Day 1 ended. So on Day 2, the action starts out quick with a flurry of bustouts. All the short-stacks push all in and hope to double up. About half of them survive and the rest head over to the floor guy who tells them how much they won. I scurry around trying to figure out which big names are left over. I also make sure the junior reporters keep an eye on the big stacks. Trying to cover a hundred players that I have never seen before can be difficult and I give kudos to the guys on my team for continuously getting the job done. I rely upon their reporting skills to help bolster the tournament coverage since I can't be on the floor as much as I'd like to.

Over the weekend, I covered the $2K NL Day 2 and the $1,500 NL Donkfest Day 2. Today I have the $3K NL Day 2. What a difference $1,500 makes. There were only 827 players in Event #28 versus 2,135 in the $1,500 Donkathon. Out of the 81 remaining players, there are plenty of top pros. Phil Gordon went busto shortly before Day 2 ended when Ed Moncada made a great call and felted El Gordo. Moncada won a bracelet in 2005 and he's second in chips behind Feng Chen. Phil Hellmuth is 4th in chips and Perry Friedman is 5th. I know it burns Phil Gordon up at night knowing that Perry has more bracelets than him. He has zero.

All eyes are on Hellmuth when he plays, walks, or talks. Its sort of like watching Willie Mays play catch alongside a massive car wreck on the 405. You're watching a superstar and secretly hoping to see carnage in the process with severed limbs and pools of blood. Hellmuth is looking for bracelet #12. He already set another record with his 60th WSOP cash and is trying to break TJ Cloutier's record of most WSOP final tables. Hold'em is Hellmuth's game. And you know what? The world evolves around Phil Hellmuth. Just ask him and he'll agree.

Also in that field are Maureen Feduniak, Jorge "twin_caracas" Arias, The Unabomber, Greg FBT Mueller, Steve Dannenmann, Taylor Caby, Evelyn Ng, and actor Norm MacDonald. Should be fun to cover.

Click here to follow my coverage of Event #28 $3,000 NL Hold'em over at PokerNews.

Last night, Phil Ivey took 4th place in the $5K HORSE event and missed winning his 6th bracelet and $10 million in cash. I'm still trying to verify that rumor about his $2 million bracelet bet with 5-1 odds.

The Razz event began and they got over 300 runners. I spotted Eskimo Clark in the field. He's alive and looked good for a guy who was passed out in the Poker Sauna a week earlier. Also in the Razz event were Shirley Rosario, Jim McManus, Katja Thater, Lacey Jones, Chris Fargis (who final tabled last year's event) and Jen Creason who has a cash in the Razz event from 2005. Razz is for pure sadists but Andy Bloch mentioned that he thinks it's the easiest game to master.

Here are the tournaments over the next week:
Event #30 June 18 @ noon $2,500 NL - 6 handed (3 day event)
Event #31 June 19 @ noon $5,000 World Championship Heads Up NL (3 day event)
Event #32 June 19 @ 5 p.m. $2,000 Seven Card Stud (2 day event)
Event #33 June 20 @ noon $1,500 PLO w/rebuys (2 day event)
Event #34 June 20 @ 5 p.m. $3,000 Limit Hold 'em (3 day event)
Event #35 June 21 @ noon $1,500 NL (3 day event)
Event #36 June 21 @ 5 p.m. $5,000 World Championship Omaha8 or Better (3 day event)
Event #37 June 22 @ noon $2,000 Pot-limit hold 'em (3 day event)
Event #38 June 23 @ noon $1,500 NL (3 day event)
Event #39 June 24 @ noon $50,000 World Championship HORSE (5 day event)
Event #40 June 24 @ 5 p.m. $1,500 Mixed hold 'em (Limit/NL - 3 Day event)
I play in Event #38 the $1,500 Donkfest. Why? Because I'm a donkey and it's my only day off between now and July 3rd when Widespread Panic plays in Las Vegas.

Here's a list of 2007 WSOP Bracelet Winners through Event #26:
Event #1 $5,000 Mixed Limit/NL Hold'em: Steve Billirakis
Event #2 $500 Casino Employee NL: Frederick Narciso
Event #3 $1,500 NL: Cairan O'Leary
Event #4 $1,500 Pot-limit Hold 'em: Michael Spiegel
Event #5 $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud 8: Tom Schneider
Event #6 $1,500 Limit Hold 'em: Gary Styczynski
Event #7 $5,000 PLO w/rebuys: Burt Boutin
Event #8 $1,000 NL w/rebuys: Michael Chu
Event #9 $1,500 Omaha 8: Alexander Kravchenko
Event #10 $2,000 NL: William Durkee
Event #11 $5,000 Seven Card Stud: Chris Reslock
Event #12 $1,500 NL Six Handed: Jason Warner
Event #13 $5,000 Pot-limit Hold 'em: Allen Cunningham
Event #14 $1,500 Seven Card Stud: Michael Keiner
Event #15 $1,500 NL: Phil Hellmuth
Event #16 $2,500 HORSE: James Richberg
Event #17 $1,000 Ladies Event NL: Sally Boyer
Event #18 $5,000 Limit Hold'em: Jard Getzoyan
Event #19 $2,500 NL: Francois Safieddine
Event #20 $2,000 Seven Card Stud 8: Ryan Hughes
Event #21 $1,500 NL Shootout: Don Baruch
Event #22 $5,000 NL: James Mackey
Event #23 $1,500 PLO: Scott Clements
Event #24 $3,000 Seven Card Stud 8: Eli Elezra
Event #25 $2,000 NL: Ben Ponzio
Event #26 $5,000 HORSE: Ralph Schwartz
* * * * *

Bouncin Round the Room on Day 17

Norm MacDonald played in the $3K event. We requested an interview for PokerNews and he said he wanted to shave first before he was on camera.

David Williams snapped at one of our reporters. He told Zeke to scram while he was getting information on a hand that Williams lost. Our new nickname for Williams is... Scram. Beats his old name... Foot Jizz.

My brother Derek sent this to me in an email about a NY Jets player:
it looks like the media is after jonathan vilma . . . after he kind of sided with michael vick last week regarding the dog fighting (but in a less embarassing way than clinton portis did) . . . the media seems to be on this smear campaign of vilma . . . they had some article linking vilma to the poker club in NY that got robbed this weekend . . . they were like vilma plays here all the time just like ARod and AJ Soprano. i guess these media clowns think poker is just as bad a dog fighting b/c there is no reason to write the article and talk about vilma . . . the story is that the club got robbed. we all know by now these clubs are illegal . . . old news.
Around Midnight, Chris Fargis said that they had yet to go on a dinner break for the Razz event. "We also need a two hour break for the older folks in the field to take a nap." They were going to play down to a final table but stopped the action around 3am. They will try to play a final table today. I have no idea. They change shit on the fly all the time.

Stella Count at the Tilted Kilt: 24

Number of people who asked me for weed over the weekend: 24

Number of media reps who asked me for Valium: 13

Sunday night, not too many hookers strolling around. They go to church on Sundays since it's their day of rest.
Last 5 Pros I Pissed Next To...
1. Marcel Luske
2. Victor Ramdin
3. Joe Sebok
4. Jamie Gold
5. David "The Dragon" Pham
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Don't forget to check out LasVegasVegas for Flipchip's WSOP photos. And come back at the Tao of Poker for daily recaps and head over at PokerNews for live coverage and updates including chipcounts.

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

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